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Kuzco watched the woman tying up her boat on the beach. He had never seen someone quite like her. She was tall; taller than some of his guards. True, she had knocked him out cold with her oar a short time before, but that was probably a simple misunderstanding.
Once the boat was tied up, she turned to him and said something he couldn’t understand, but he supposed she might want to know where he was from, so he pointed up at the mountains. She looked up, looked at him, and seemed to understand. He began walking in that direction, giving a wave for her to follow him, and to his surprise, she did.
He walked up the road, and his guards were waiting a little ways up the hill, and informed him that they were going to come look for him soon if they didn’t see him soon. He told them he was going to show this woman his palace, and the guards could follow if they felt like it.
At first she was following him a short distance behind. He stopped every so often to point out a nice view, and she’d nod and look, though he wasn’t sure if she actually picked up on what he was saying. They stopped at a small village about halfway up, and got dinner. She looked around, apparently impressed at the decor. She eyed some of the dishes skeptically, but ultimately tried everything, and she seemed to enjoy the potatoes. Kuzco found the traditional potato variety in this village rather flavorless, but he admitted to himself that perhaps he was a bit too picky.
The innkeeper was more than happy to get her a room separate from his, and he was more than happy to sleep off the lump on his head.
The next morning, she seemed rather surprised when, following breakfast, he wanted to continue up into the mountains. He tried to explain that his head was feeling much better after a night’s rest, so they should keep going. The innkeeper even gave her a flask with some extra tea.
At some point in the afternoon, when he was almost back to his palace, one of his guards caught up, and informed him that he had left the woman behind. He had seen her get up to follow him after their brief lunch, but that was only a short time ago, and he didn’t see any reason to stop before now.
He asked the guards to bring her up to the palace.
Moana landed on the shore of an island that seemed to stretch forever in each direction. She had never seen an island this large. She followed the coast for a while before deciding to land on this section of beach, since it looked the most accessible to the inland areas. Just as she got her boat ashore and hopped out, someone jumped out from the brush and shouted something incomprehensible. She was startled; there had been no sign of villages from the ocean. Without thinking, she swung her oar at him, and he was on the ground, senseless.
She looked around a little more, and then was about to begin tying up her boat, when the strange man was up again, muttering something while rubbing his head.
“I’m sorry!” she called out. “But you shouldn’t startle me like that!”
He said some other things, but he seemed harmless enough now, so she went back to tying up her boat. He was watching her, but let him. He was scrawny, and surprisingly short.
Once she had finished, he began pointing up at the mountains, saying something. Perhaps there was something to see in the mountains here. She began following him. They soon passed some other men, all holding weapons, and he said something to them, and they nodded.
A few times the man would stop and point out something. She looked, and could see the ocean, or some more mountains, but as soon as she had seen it, they moved on, never resting long enough.
As it was beginning to get dark, she finally realized why she hadn’t seen any villages near the shore; obviously, the people here lived up in the mountains. He led her into an enormous village, with houses all perched along the mountain, and led her into some kind of hall. They sat down, and people came out with dishes of food. She wasn’t quite sure what anything was. Some dishes obviously had fish, but she wasn’t quite sure what kind of meat was on some of the other plates. It didn’t seem to be chicken or pork. There was some kind of starchy vegetable, too. She tried a taste and it was quite good, so she had more.
Someone showed her to a smaller room, which had a bed in it. It was getting late, and she was getting tired. She felt rested but oddly dizzy in the morning. The tea they gave her at breakfast seemed to help, though, but the man she had been following was ready to take her further. She tried to explain that she would like to wait a little before exploring more, but he was insistent.
He seemed to be going much faster today, because she could barely keep up, and was feeling very out of breath. She thought she was starting to recognize the word he would say any time she was falling behind.
Shortly after lunch, she started falling behind more, but he seemed to be going even faster. The first few times, he was saying the words she was beginning to recognize, but then he practically sprinted up the mountain away from her. She was very dizzy now, and out of breath, and sat down.
She had an odd dream, and the men she had seen earlier down near the shore came up to her, and after some discussion, picked her up and began carrying her up the mountain. She started to think that perhaps she wasn’t dreaming.
They set her down in a bed, and she was quite certain she wasn’t dreaming now. The man was there.
“There you are! You should have said if you needed to rest!”
How was she understanding him now? Maybe this was still a dream. Or a nightmare.