Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ever since Moana had restored the Heart of Te Fiti and reintroduced wayfinding to her people, things had been relatively peaceful. Her people had spent weeks on the ocean learning as much as they could about wayfinding, measuring the stars, and tying knots. Some days they experienced good wind and fair seas, other days the winds were rough and the waves high. On those days, the villagers were scared for their lives but Moana stood tall and encouraged them to keep going forward. She was a natural teacher, and she showed her people how to ride the waves.

Eventually, one of the women spotted land ahead, and the villagers scrambled as quickly as they could to get to the new island, soon dubbed Hehi Pohaku by Chief Tui. As soon as their canoes touched shore, the villagers threw everything they had into building a village and exploring the bounties of their new home.

Maui visited Moana every now and then. Sometimes he was gone for longer than she liked, but Moana couldn’t fault him for that — he was a demigod, and he couldn’t always make time for her while he was off fighting monsters, or raising islands, or whatever it was that Maui did besides playing tricks. She had to be okay with that. (It didn’t stop her from missing him.)

Usually when Maui dropped by, he was only there for her. Even for all of his ego and bravado, he seemed almost nervous when confronted by more than one or two people at a time. When Moana has asked about it, he just shrugged and said, “It’s just weird. I was on that godsforsaken pebble pile for a thousand years. I’m so used to being on my own, so when there’s like, I dunno, a hundred people looking and talking at me at once it gets kind of overwhelming.”

After that, Moana made sure that her people understood that while Maui was an awesome demigod of legend, he wasn’t used to so many people at once. Thankfully, the villagers understood and let Maui be. 

And so it went for a few years. Moana worked to help lead her people and to keep the traditions of wayfinding alive, and Maui continued on with his “demigod duties,” whatever they were. And while Moana didn’t always know what he meant by that, he was more than eager to tell her all about his feats of heroism whenever he saw her. All in all, it was the same. 

And then one day, it wasn’t.

One night when Moana went to sleep, she dreamed that she was back on her ancestors’ canoe journeying towards Te Fiti. She was alone, and struggling against her sail and the seas. On her chest, she could feel the Heart of Te Fiti pulsing like a beacon. silently urging her forwards. 

“It’s a beautiful night,” an unfamiliar voice said from beside her. Moana turned and for some reason was unsurprised to see a blue man sitting on the edge of the stern. “Good winds, good seas, clear skies. A perfect night for wayfinding.”

“Who are you?” Moana found herself asking.

The man looked at her, and Moana was taken aback by how blue he was. His skin was the same color as the ocean on a clear day, with turquoise and dark blue stripes racing down face, chest, and limbs. His hair was a blue so dark that it looked nearly black. His eyes glittered in the starlight like two pieces of sea glass. Around his waist, he wore a bundle of seaweed the same way Maui wore his palm fronds.

“It should be obvious who I am, shouldn’t it?” He asked. When Moana shook her head, the man rolled his eyes and dipped his hand into the water. From under the waves, a shoal of humuhumu swam up to greet him and play with his fingers before darting off. As Moana watched, a light went off in her head.

“You’re Ika-tere, aren’t you?”

“Correct you are, little mortal Moana. That’s right, I know who you are too. Please close your mouth, or you’ll catch one of my uncle’s insects.”

Moana didn’t realize that her mouth had been hanging open. She closed it with a click of her teeth. “How do you know me?”

“It’s hard not to know you. You’re Moana Waialiki of Montonui, daughter of Chief Tui and Sina Waialiki. You’re the mortal who crossed the horizon, rescued the demigod Maui and carried him across the ocean, and restored the Heart of Te Fiti. Everybody knows who you are.” 

Ika-tere laughed when Moana’s eyes went comically wide. 

“That’s right little mortal. Everyone knows about what you did. And while they are all grateful that you restored the balance between Te Kā and Te Fiti, there are those who wished that you had left Maui on his island. Namely Tama-nui-te-Ra and Hine-nui-te-po.” Ika-tere made a face. “But then again, Tama-nui-te-Ra has always been bitter that Maui has slowed his crossing, and Hine-nui-te-po has just always been bitter. About everything.”

“Oh,” was all Moana could say.

“Yeah, oh. Imagine listening to the two of the whine and complain about every single little thing for all of eternity. It’s not fun.”

“Um, Ika-tere, not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?”

“An excellent question. I am here because my father and my uncle are at each other’s throats once again. And while their conflicts are generally stupid, this one takes the cake. Whatever that is.”

“Your father and uncle… Tangaroa and Tane?”

“Give the human a prize. She knows her own mythology. Yes, my father is Tangaroa and Tane is my uncle. And like myself and a few others, they’ve been in pain for the past millennia. Maui’s theft of the Heart of Te Fiti didn’t just affect Te Fiti, you know.” Ika-tere absently rubbed at a spot on his thigh. “Anyway, my father blamed Tane for allowing the Heart of Te Fiti to be stolen. He claims that the Heart should have been protected better, and since Te Fiti is one of Tane’s children, Tane should have done something.”

Moana bristled. “Maui had good intentions.”

“Of course he did. Everyone does. But that doesn’t excuse what happened. Gods suffered. People died. And it was Maui’s fault for stealing the Heart in the first place. That’s on him.”

Moana said nothing in reply. She knew better than to talk back to a god.

“But I didn’t come here to argue about the Heart and whose fault it was. I came here because I need something from you. And before you do the regular humble groveling of, ‘Oh, but what can I, a humble mortal, do for you, an all powerful god?’” Ika-tere said in a falsetto, “Let me just say it. I want- no. I need to stop their quarrel. They haven’t fought this badly since my brother decided to seek shelter under Tane’s canopies instead of in my father’s seas. And that’s saying something. 

“Now, my father is known to be rather… Dramatic at times. He’s not very good at letting things go, and he likes to blame other people when bad things happen. Specifically, the Heart of Te Fiti being stolen. It’s not Tane’s fault, but my father was all too ready to blame his ‘greatest rival,’ or whatever.” Ika-tere made air quotes around ‘greatest rival.’

“Now here’s where you come in. I need you to sail to my home. It is a great reef in the southwest, past the islands of your ancestors. Hurry Moana, you are waking up. Come find me, we will talk soon.”

True to his word, Moana’s dream faded around her as the sun’s rays danced across her eyes. Moana groaned and curled herself into a tight ball. She didn’t want to wake up. She was in the middle of an important dream, with the humuhumu and the blue man, and-

Wait. 

Moana was suddenly wide awake and bolted out of her room and into the village. She had to find her father. Fortunately, she ran into him soon after she ran out of the door.

“Oof!” Moana grunted at the sudden impact. “Ow…”

“Moana, are you alright?” Her father asked, “I was just coming to wake you.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I’m fine, Dad. Never better.” Moana rubbed her nose. “Wait, Dad! I have to tell you something!” She ran her hands through her hair and tried to recount her vision. “Last night, Ika-tere came to me in a dream and he told me that I had to find him. I can’t really remember why, but it was something to do with Tangaroa and Tane. Dad, I have to sail to a reef in the southwest and find him. It’s important!”

Chief Tui looked down at his daughter. There was a fire of determination in her eyes, something that he hadn’t seen since Montonui. He considered for a moment before answering. “Okay.”

“No, Dad! You don’t understand! I have to- wait. Did you just say ‘okay?’”

“Moana, you’re not a child anymore. You know more about wayfinding than anyone else in this village. You’ve been on a quest for the gods before, and they seem to trust you now. So if you say that Ika-tere told you to sail to the southwest and find him, then I believe you. 

“But Dad-”

Chief Tui held up a hand. “I have learned long ago that you know what you’re doing. You say that you need to go, so go. I should know by now that I can’t dissuade you. The gods know that I’ve tried for too long.”

Moana nodded, trying to stop the grin blooming across her face. She threw her arms around her father and buried her face in his chest. “Thank you.”

“Just come back to us, alright?”

“I will. I promise. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Moana pulled away from her father’s embrace and ran to the shore.

Time moved differently for Maui. It always had. It was one of the ‘perks’ of being a demigod, he supposed. When he was abandoned for one thousand years on that damn island, time passed relatively quickly for him. Well, it still felt like an eternity, but it was easier to know that he could fall asleep and wake up several months or even years later. Days blurred together until he wasn’t sure if he’d been there for one year or a hundred thousand. 

After the island, after Moana saved him, after Te Kā and Te Fiti, Maui tried to get a better sense of time. He did his best to visit Moana every month or so, but sometimes he misjudged or lost track of time and came back a year or two after his last visit. When that happened, there would always be a voice in the back of his mind that whispered that he was getting too attached to her. that Moana would leave him one day. She was only a mortal after all.

Maui’s worst fear was returning to find that Moana had grown old and died without him.

So when he was unceremoniously knocked out of the sky by something by the Ocean in the middle of one of his expeditions, Maui tried very hard not to be afraid. The Ocean never interacted with him like that unless Moana was in immediate danger. (The first and only other time so far had been when Moana had been stung by a poisonous jellyfish and almost died. She hadn’t, of course, but Maui had stayed for an extra month to keep a watchful eye over her just in case.)

Fear boiled in Maui’s gut as he raced to Hehi Pohaku. He constantly swapped transformations from shark, to giant hawk, and back to shark in an effort to go even faster. He had no way of knowing how long his journey took him. If could have been hours, days, weeks, who cared. He just had to make sure that Moana was okay.

When he arrived at Hehi Pohaku, Moana was pushing off the shore in the canoe that Te Fiti had given her years before. He watched her from the air for a few moments before screeching and diving on board, transforming at the last minute. He would be lying if he said that he felt some satisfaction in watching her shriek in surprise and nearly fall off her canoe. 

“Ugh! Maui!” Moana groaned and stamped her foot. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” Maui chuckled. 

“Haha, very funny.” Moana rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Wow, Moana, it almost sounds like you’re not happy to see me. Which is impossible, because we both know that my visits are the highlights of your tiny mortal life. How’s long it been, anyway? A week? A month?” Maui searched her face as casually as he could without showing how nervous he was. She didn’t seem any older, the faint lines on her face hadn’t gotten any deeper, and her hair was as dark as ever. Maybe he hadn’t been gone for too long after all. 

“Not long. I think it’s only been a couple of weeks.” Moana’s features softened. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah, right back atcha, Princess.” He ignored Moana’s grumbled claims of how she is not a princess, she is the daughter of the chief, and they have gone over this a hundred times. “So Moana, do you have any idea why the Ocean decided to knock me out of the sky for no apparent reason?”

“She did what?” Moana leveled a glare at the water. “Ocean, I told you that I will be fine. There’s no reason to worry.” She turned back to Maui. “I’m so sorry she did that. I didn’t tell her to do that, I swear.”

“Whoa wait, back up. What do you mean ‘you will be fine?’ Don’t tell me that you’re going on another dangerous quest for the gods,” he said, half joking.

Moana hesitated. “Actually, I am.” She took her seat at the stern of the canoe and readied her oar in the water. “Ika-tere came to me in a dream last night and told me to find him in a reef southwest of here. I don’t really remember the rest of it, but I know that it’s important.”

“Fish-face came to see you? What the hell?”

“Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“No, Moana, Ika-tere rarely appears to mortals, even in the most dire of circumstances. He’s weird like that, but if he came to you, then this must a pretty big deal. I’m coming with you.”

“Maui, I am a grown woman. I can take care of myself,” Moana huffed and pulled one of her ropes. Maui moved just in time to avoid getting knocked in the head by the sail. 

“It’s not a matter of whether or not you’re capable, Princess, it’s a matter of if Ika-tere wants you to do something then it is most likely a suicide mission, and I refuse to let you do something this stupid alone. Besides, you probably don’t even know where he lives.”

“I know it’s in a reef in the southwest,” Moana said stubbornly.

“That’s a general direction. You could sail to the southwest for a century and still not know where it is.”

“And I suppose you know where it is?” Moana raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah, I do. I’ve been there a few times. I’m a demigod, remember? I’ve been around the block once or twice before.” Maui crossed his arms. “I’m coming with you.”

The two glared at each other until Moana groaned and rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. Fine. I guess you can come with me on this super important quest to potentially save the world. I guess.” She grinned. “Just please no musical numbers this time? The last one was bad enough.”

“Hey, I spent one thousand years working on that musical number. It was amazing and you know it. In fact, I have another one if you want.”

Moana gave an exaggerated sigh. “Same old Maui.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” He demanded. 

“It means exactly what you think it does,” Moana said, pulling on her rope. Maui should have seen it coming (and he later claimed that he did), but getting hit by a sail and knocked into the water tends to take a person by surprise. When he came up sputtering and gasping for air, Moana was clutching her stomach and laughing so hard that her cheeks were turning red.

Maui supposed that he had to give Moana points for that (Mini-Maui certainly had), but that didn’t stop him from grabbing her by the ankle and tossing her into the water as well. 

Chapter Text

Moana hadn’t realized how much she missed sailing until she was back on her canoe with Maui. Sure, she had continued on with her lessons on wayfinding with some of the villagers, but they were just that — lessons. On the open water, she felt freer than she had in years. She started to feel the heavy weight of leadership slide off her shoulder. Moana loved her people — of course she loved her people — but while she was dealing with and sorting out everyone else’s needs, the call to the sea was always there. Waiting for her.

Moana didn’t have to worry about other people’s problems out here. She only had to worry about herself and her canoe. And Maui, but he could more or less take care of himself. 

They’d been sailing for a good few hours, letting a comfortable silence fall over them. Maui took his place at the stern, which made more sense considering the fact that he was the one who actually knew how to find Ika-tere. From her station near the mast, Moana watched the sun rise higher in the sky.

“So what do you think Fish-face wants?” Maui broke the silence.

“I don’t know,” Moana answered. “I think he mentioned something about Tangaroa and Tane, but I really don’t remember.”

“Oh this just gets better and better,” Maui muttered. Moana shot him a confused look, silently asking him to elaborate. “You know you’re being sent on a blank quest, right? Fish-face summons you out of the blue and says he needs your help, but you don’t know what kind of help he needs from you. It could be anything! That’s textbook water god right there.”

“What’s a textbook?”

“Don’t worry about it. That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“The point is that good old Gills For Brains could need you to do any number of things, especially if Tree Beard and Fish-face are involved. And nothing they need could possible be good.”

“Wait. I thought Ika-tere was Fish-face.”

“They’re both Fish-face,” Maui stated pointedly. 

“If you say so. I’ll be find. Ika-tere wouldn’t have asked me to do this if he thought I wasn’t up to the task.”

“Yeah, but he’s also an asshole. Trust me, I know. And he’s not even the worst one.”

“Oh, so you know all the gods now?” Moana asked sarcastically. When Maui stared at her in a deadpan, her eyes widened. “Oh wow, you know all the gods.”

“Most of them, yeah.”

Moana moved so that she was sitting closer to Maui. “What are they like?

“Well what do you think they’re like?”

“I don’t know.” Moana dipped her feet in the water. “I never really thought about it. I’ve heard the stories and legends, but I can’t know for sure without disrespecting them and accidentally cursing my whole village with a plague or whatever.”

“In that case, I’ll let you form your own opinions when you meet them.”

“Oh come on! You can’t just dangle that information and then not tell me!”

“Sure I can. I just did.” Maui gave her a cheeky grin, and Moana groaned.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“No I don’t,” Moana agreed, “but that’s still kind of a jerk move.”

“You want to see a jerk move? You should meet Tawhiri-ma-tea. Now there’s an asshole if I’ve ever met one.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. He’s a huge asshole,” Maui nodded. “I mean, it’s nice that he loves his parents and all, but fighting all of your brothers because you’re mad that you had an unpopular opinion? And then only managing to fight two out of the five? Asshole.” Maui paused, and then looked at Moana with a grin that he reserved solely for whenever he came up with a new joke or trick. “Hey Moana, wanna know how big of an asshole he is?”

“Sure, why not. How big of an asshole is he?”

“He’s an asshole the size of a hurricane!” Maui laughed at his truly terrible punchline. “Get it? Because he’s the god of storms and stuff, and he’s an asshole!

“Yes, Maui, I get it,” Moana stated flatly, and the muttered, “I wish I hadn’t,” under her breath. 

“Come on! That was a good joke!”

“It really wasn’t. It was a bad joke and you should be ashamed of yourself. Now scoot over, I want to steer for a bit.”

“Yeah okay,” Maui stood up, still chuckling over his dumb joke. “I’m gonna go see if I can’t catch us anything to eat. You can’t live off of fruit and coconuts forever, you know. Oh, and try not to get us too far off course.” Maui winked at her, and dove into the water. Moana watched the split-second transformation as he swam off in the form of a shark.

Moana stared at the calm waves. “Please tell me that you hated his joke too.”

A small wave rose up from the water and nodded. 

“Is he right, though? About Ika-tere?”

The wave tilted in consideration, and made a gesture similar to a shrug. Which either meant that the Ocean didn’t know, or that Maui was probably right about this mission being a bad idea.

“I want to him him. It’s my duty, isn’t it?”

Moana felt the Ocean glaring at her.

“I know, I know. ‘I only have a duty to myself,’ and all that. But Ika-tere is a god. An actual god. How could I say no?”

The wave slumped in exasperation.

“You have an answer to everything don’t you?” Moana sighed and shifted her oar. “The waters have been good so far. Thank you.”

The wave nodded again and squired Moana in the face. Moana giggled and wiped the water out of her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I love you too.” 

The top of the wave curved into what looked like a smile. Moana sighed in content. She truly loved being out on the open water. Sometimes it made her wish that…

Nope. Not going down that road. Moana shook her head, trying to get the intrusive thoughts out. She couldn’t afford to think that way, not when her family and her entire village were counting on her.

But the Ocean…

No. She couldn’t. No matter what the Ocean said or gestured, Moana had a sacred responsibility that had been passed down from her ancestors. One that would soon be passed down to her.

Unless…

No! Final answer! 

Moana pinched the inside of her wrist as hard as she could. It didn’t matter what she wanted, not when it came to her people. They were all counting on her to be the leader that they would need in the future.

In an attempt to distract herself, Moana dug into the hold for something to eat. She pulled up the first thing she touched (which happened to be a banana), and ate it. “Yeah, Moana, just eat your feelings. That will solve your problems,” she chastised herself. “And Maui says that I can’t live off fruit forever. Dammit, where is he when you need him?”

“Listen, I was gone for like, a minute,” Maui’s voice said from beside her. Moana jumped and turned in her seat to see a very smug-looking shark bobbing in the water near her. “I brought you some food,” Maui said, right before coughing up a small pile of fish at Moana’s feet.

Moana looked at the chewed-up fish, and then at Maui. “You can’t be serious.”

“What? This is quality stuff! Birds do it all the time!”

“I am not a bird, and I am not eating anything that you threw up,” Moana stated, and moved her feet away from the dead fish. 

“Suit yourself. More for me,” he said, and hauled himself up on the canoe far enough so he could re-eat the fish. Moana tried very hard not to be sick. 

“This is disgusting. I am so disgusted right now.”

“Hi So Disgusted Right Now,” Maui smiled, showing off rows of blood-covered shark teeth, “I’m Maui.”

Moana groaned loudly. “Maui, I am going to kick you in the leg.”

“How can you kick me in the leg if I don’t currently have any legs?” Maui taunted. 

“You know what I mean!”

“I don’t know, Moana. You methods for threatening people seem rather… Inef-fish-ient.”

Moana stared at Maui for a long while. “Did you just…”

Maui just kept his shit-eating shark grin on his face as he transformed back into his human form and hopped onto the side of the canoe. “Mm, delicious. Honestly, Moana, I think you just missed out on some of the best fish in the world. It was a reel catch if you know what I mean.”

“Maui-” Moana tried to stop herself from laughing.

“Absolutely fin-tastic in my opinion! I’m shoal nothing could be better than this!”

Moana couldn’t help it anymore. She burst into laughter. “Those are all horrible!” Moana wipes away some tears that came with her laughter. “Gods, Maui, you’re the worst.”

“Yeah I am, aren’t I?” Maui grinned in satisfaction. He didn’t know what exactly had been going on in Moana’s head while he was gone for all of two minutes, but whatever it was, it seemed to not be bothering her anymore. Good, he thought. He never liked it when Moana was unhappy.

They went on for days in that manner: sailing, making jokes, and keeping each other company. Days stretched into weeks, which stretched into more weeks. At one point, Maui slept for eight days straight, and no matter what Moana did she couldn’t wake him up. So instead, she decided to play a prank on him and proceeded to place every single piece of seagrass that she could find on top of him. When Maui woke up, he was very confused as to why he was under a mound of dead aquatic flora. 

He’d gotten her back for that by placing a half-digested eel on her stomach while she was asleep.

Moana did not take that prank very well, and refused to speak to Maui for an entire thirty minutes. She would have gone longer, save for the fact that he was the only other person for miles, and he was also her best friend.

“As far as your pranks go, that one wasn’t even the worst one,” she admitted later.

“Oh really? Do tell.”

Moana sighed. “Remember when you first taught me how to sail?”

“Yeah. I was temporarily paralyzed by a blow dart in my butt. Fun times.”

“Well, You told me to check the currents to see if they were warm. And then you peed in the water. That was pretty terrible. Not to mention that it’s one of the top five most disgusting things I’ve ever experienced.”

“Gods, I forgot about that one,” Maui chuckled and shook his head. “What are the other four?”

“Other four what?”

“The other four disgusting things on your list.”

“I’m not telling you that.” Moana scrunched her nose. “If I do, then that’s just going to guarantee you doing them.”

Moana, as per usual, was mostly correct. It took a few days, but Maui finally convinced her to tell him her top five list. As it turned out, there were only two that he could actually do, and Maui had never really been one to repeat pranks. 

Maui had been sitting at the stern with the oar in one hand and a rope with the other. Moana had been lying on the deck, staring up at the sail.

“Come on, Moana, tell me. You know you want to.” Maui wagged his eyebrows at her in what was supposed to be a convincing manner, but only made himself look ridiculous. 

“Alright, alright already. I’ll tell you. But you face to promise that you aren’t going to do any of them.”

“Cross my heart,” Maui swore. 

“Okay.” Moana sat up and started counting on her fingers. “So going in order of least to most gross, it’s the warm current prank, being grabbed by a monster’s tongue in Lalotai, you throwing up and then eating those fish a few weeks ago, being stung by that jellyfish and almost dying a few years back, and seeing a baby being born.” She huffed when she was finished. “Well there you have it. That’s my list.”

Maui frowned. “Wait, how is a baby being born at the top of the list?”

“Have you ever seen a baby being born?”

“Well, no, but-”

“You don’t want to see it. Trust me. It still haunts me,” Moana shuddered.

“Okay I’ll take your word for it. But jellyfish at number two?”

“Almost dying isn’t fun, Maui. It’s not a nice trip around the island. It’s agonizing pain and hallucinations. Easily the second most disgusting thing I’ve ever gone through.”

“But why number two? You’d think that almost dying would be at number one.”

“You just said that you’ve never seen a baby being born. Listen, you know nothing.” Moana lay back down. “You know absolutely nothing.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve died once or twice and that’s never fun,” Maui shrugged.

Moana sat back up and stared at Maui. “Wait really? I thought those were just myths.”

“Not all of them. There was this lady, Hine-nui-te-po, who I may have tried to trick into giving humans immortality. Needless to say, that plan failed and she bit me in half. It wasn’t exactly a nice trip around the island either.”

Moana was incredulous. “Wait so if she bit you in half, how are you still here?”

Maui thought for a moment. “You know, I have no idea.”

“That’s kind of weird.”

“You’re telling me,” Maui scoffed. “You weren’t the one who was bit in half. Come to think of it, I think I still have the scars from that.”

“Really?” Moana scooted closer to Maui. “Can I see?”

“If you want, but I’m pretty sure that they’re hidden under my tattoos. Have fun searching for them, kid. If I haven’t seen them in over a thousand years, them they’re probably not there anymore.”

“Fair point,” Moana agreed, and went back to lying down.

Two days after that, they finally hit a storm. They’d been expecting one sooner or later and at that point they were relieved that it had arrived. They worked together to keep the canoe upright, and it was a miracle that neither of them had gone overboard. Moana slipped twice, and both times Maui managed to catch her before she could fall into the water. They battled the storm for almost a full day before the rain and rough seas let up. As soon as Maui gave the ‘all clear,’ Moana passed out and refused to wake up until well into the afternoon of the next day. 

“Are we almost there?” Moana asked eventually. 

“I think so. We’re definitely more than halfway there. It should only be a week longer.”

“Okay, because we’re starting to run low on food and clean water. It only we decided to make a stop at that last island we saw,” she gave Maui a side-eyed glance. 

“Don’t act like that was my fault, girlie, that one’s on you. Little miss, ‘oh don’t worry Maui. I’m fine Maui. Look at me I’m so tough and strong and good at everything!’” Maui said in a high voice.

Moana glared at Maui. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well how about this? ‘Oh look at me I’m Maui. I’m a super-strong demigod who does gross and vaguely weird things like scratching my butt and eating my own vomit!’” Moana mocked in a deep voice.

“Would you let the fish thing go already? It’s been nearly two months!”

“I will never let that go, Maui. Never. That was disgusting.”

“I already apologized for that! And you scratch your butt too. That’s not just a me thing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ladies do not scratch their butts, and I am nothing less than a perfect lady.”

“Okay I’m calling bullshit. You’re just as bad as I am!”

“Yeah, but at least I don’t throw up fish in front of people and then eat it!”

“Moana, I am begging you. Please let it go already!”

“Never!”

“Okay, I know I’ve asked this before, but are we there yet?”

“Okay, I know I’ve answered this before, but we’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Ugh!” Moana moaned dramatically. 

“I’m sorry, but I thought you liked wayfinding and being out on the open ocean or whatever.”

“Yeah I do, but this trip has been so boring! We hit maybe one storm, we haven’t fought any monsters or anything, and there’s basically nothing for me to do! Sometimes I just feel so-”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Princess, because if you start singing about how hard your life is, I will throw you off this boat. Again.”

“I’m not going to start singing,” Moana rolled her eyes. 

“Thank you.”

Moana lit up at the sudden opportunity, and shot Maui a mischievous smile. In that moment, he understood exactly what was going to happen, and before he could stop her, Moana burst into song. “Well what can I say except You’re Welcome?”

Maui groaned loudly while Moana laughed.

“That’s it. Next chance I get I’m going to show you my other musical number whether you like it or not.”

That night, Maui encouraged Moana to get some rest. They would be reaching Ika-tere soon, and Maui insisted that Moana needed as much sleep as she could get before meeting him.

“Maui, I am fine,” she tried to protest.

Maui stared at her in a deadpan. “Moana, you’re tired. Even I can see it.”

“Prove it.”

“Well for starters, you tried to bite the outside of a coconut a minute ago. Go to sleep.”

“Okay, Dad,” Moana stuck out her tongue. “Wake me up as soon as we get there, okay?”

“Don’t worry your little head about it.”

Moana nodded and lay down facing away from Maui. Several minutes after she closed her eyes, she started to snore softly.

Maui scoffed and shook his head. “Mortals.”

On his chest, Mini-Maui was smiling.

“Oh yeah? What are you looking at?”

Mini-Maui shrugged, and gestured to the tattoo just above his — the one that featured a smiling Moana, expertly riding the waves.

“I know she’s good at this stuff, but she’s still just a human. There’s only so much she can do before she needs to stop and rest.”

Mini-Maui raised an inked eyebrow.

“I’m a demigod. I can go longer than she can. I don’t get why she thinks she has to… I don’t know how to say it, but you know how she is, right? She’s balancing all of these different responsibilities and… I don’t know. I’m kind of worried about her.”

Maui’s tiny tattoo counterpart hopped from his spot to the Mini-Moana and wrapped her in a hug.

“No, I am not going to hug her problems away. That’s weird, and I’d probably accidentally hurt her rather than help.” Maui rolled his eyes. “As much as I hate to say it, I think she needs this. Needs to worry about herself for once and not everyone else. I just wish that she didn’t have to go on a damn quest for it to happen. But I’m not going to get all touchy-feely over it. That never ends well.”

Mini-Maui shrugged and moved back to his spot.

“What a weirdo,” Maui muttered, and wasn’t all that surprised when he felt Mini-Maui kick him in the chest.

Moana woke up to something poking her foot. “Maui stoppit…”

“Hate to break it to you, Princess, but I’m over here.”

“Then whaAH!” Moana screeched and fell into the water. “Maui, what the hell!” 

To his credit, Maui was trying very hard not to laugh as he pointed out the blue crab scuttling around where Moana was just sleeping. Moana groaned and pulled herself back onto the canoe. She glared at the crab. “How the heck did you get up here?” She asked it. 

“Hey, you were the one who said that you wanted me to wake you up when we arrived. Well I found this little guy hanging out and guess what? We arrived.” Maui spread his arm out to the side, gesturing to the expansive reef around them. Moana looked around, wide-eyed. 

“Whoa… It’s so big. How are we going to find Ika-tere in all of this?”

“You know, you could just ask,” the crab said.

Moana and Maui looked at the crab, and then at each other. 

“Did you just-”

“Hear the crab talk?” Maui finished. “Yeah I did.”

“Ugh, humans.” The crab rolled his eyes. “Maybe you need to open your eyes a little bit more.” Suddenly, there was a very familiar-looking blue man sitting where the crab was a moment ago. “Hello again, little mortal. It’s nice to see you again. You made good time.”

Chapter Text

Maui had a tight grip on his fishhook. He was glaring at Ika-tere — glaring hard. On the other hand, Ika-tere barely spared Maui a glance, but it was obvious from his rigid posture and how tight his lips were that he was on edge about Maui’s being there. 

“Little mortal,” he said through his teeth, “I am fairly certain that when I called you here, I did not stretch the invitation to him.” Ika-tere jerked his head towards Maui.

“I can hear you, you know,” Maui growled.

“I’m well aware of the demigod, little mortal,” Ika-tere told Moana, still refusing to look at Maui. “And I’m afraid that I won’t be telling you anything of substance until he leaves.”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. Not happening,” Maui said, physically placing himself between Moana and Ika-tere. “I’m not leaving her here with the likes of you.”

Ika-tere finally looked at Maui, and stared him dead in the eyes for a long moment before slowly saying, “The likes of me? As opposed to what? The likes of you?” Ika-tere’s voice rose in volume. “Need I remind you which one of us is a god, and which one of us is a pathetic, washed up — literally washed up — wannabe who was so desperate for love and attention that he stole the heart of a major goddess, and didn’t stop once to think that maybe it was a bad idea? You think you’re better than me? You are nothing but a thief.” Ika-tere sneered. “Perhaps you deserve more time on that little island of yours.”

The tattooed stripes on Ika-tere’s body glowed blue with mana, and Maui’s fishhook lit up to match. But before anything catastrophic could happen, Moana pushed herself between the two immortals and placed a reassuring hand on Maui’s arm. Maui tore his attention away from Ika-tere and stared down at Moana.

“Maui,” she said softly, “It’ll be okay.”

“But he-”

“He isn’t going to do anything. We’re just going to talk. Right?” Moana turned to Ika-tere, silently prompting him to agree. 

Ika-tere rolled his eyes and made a face. “You have my word as a god and as the son of Tangaroa that I will not harm her.”

Maui made a low noise in the back of his throat. “Alright. Fine. But I fine a single hair on her head out of place-”

Moana elbowed him in the stomach. “Maui,” she said in a warning tone.

“But-”

“No buts, no cuts, no coconuts,” Moana hissed. “It’ll be okay.”

Maui opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but decided against it. He shot Ika-tere one last glare before launching himself into the air and flying off as a giant hawk. As soon as Maui took off, Ika-tere raised an eyebrow at Moana. 

“No buts, no cuts, no coconuts?”

“It’s an expression,” Moana explained hastily. “Just something the village kids would say.”

“You know, I’ve been on this mortal plane for millennia, and I’ve never heard anyone say ‘no buts, no cuts, no coconuts.’” The corners of Ika-tere’s mouth turned up in an amused smile. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

Moana gaped at him, then shook her head. She had more important things to discuss than one of her childhood comebacks. “Lord Ika-tere, I’ve done what you’ve asked me to do. You called me, and I came to you. If it wouldn’t be too much of a burden, could you please tell me why?”

“First, tell me what you remember from the dream I sent. Dreams are fickle things — most mortals can’t even remember them after waking, even if they had been handed the secrets of the universe in their sleep. Yet, dreams remain the easiest and most direct form of contact between gods and humans.”

“Okay, um,” Moana had to think for a moment, “I remember I was on my canoe, and you told something about Tangaroa and Tane, and that I had to come here.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. That’s all.”

Ika-tere hmmed. “That’s better than I expected. Congratulations for have a better memory than the average mortal.” He sat down on the edge of the deck and let his feet dangle into the water. He idly pat at the spot next to him. “Sit.”

Moana sat, and Ika-tere began.

“Alright, listen close, because you will not be given the luxury of hearing this a second time. Do you remember what started Tangaroa and Tane’s war in the beginning?”

Moana nodded, but before she could recite the myth, Ika-tere continued on.

“Good. Then I’m sure that it won’t come as a surprise to know that they’ve started fighting. Again.” Ika-tere rolled his eyes. “Take a guess as to why they’re fighting this time. Here’s a hint: it’s all your demigod friend’s fault.”

Realization struck. “The Heart of Te Fiti… But why would the Heart cause them to go to war with each other?”

“Because, both Tane and my father were severely injured during Te Kā’s reign. Her darkness spread across every single island, forest, and sea that she could find. It was not… How did you put it? It was not ‘a nice trip around the island,’ for anyone.”

“How did you-”

Ika-tere rolled on. “Normally their conflict wouldn’t affect anything. It would just be part of the natural order of the world and everyone would move on with their lives. But this time it’s different. My father, though weakened, is enraged. He thinks that Tane should have done a better job protecting Te Fiti and her heart, so he is pouring every ounce of his strength into attacking him, and since my father is not known for seeing reason, Tane can only retaliate. 

“Fish are being slaughtered. Entire islands are being flooded and overtaken by the sea, only to turn into volcanoes and rise from the deep, bigger and stronger than ever. Primordial chaos is overtaking the islands of your ancestors, and your people are dying. People are dying, little mortal.

“And as much as I dislike my uncle, he should not be blamed for Maui’s crimes.” Ika-tere sighed and leaned back to rest his weight on his hands. “But that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is what you are going to do about it.”

Moana stared at Ika-tere in shock and confusion. “I’m sorry, but what could I possibly do to stop a war between two gods?”

Ika-tere gave Moana a half-hearted glare. “I’m pretty sure that I explained this to you once before, but I guess I’ll have to do it again. I chose you for this mission because — to put it in layman’s terms — you are the best. The gods know you for your great deeds of strength, and your people know you for your great deeds of heart. If I want to stop my father and my uncle from quarreling, then I will need the assistance of the mortal who stood tall in the face of the demon Te Kā and had the wisdom to see Te Fiti underneath the ashes. I need the mortal who grabbed the trickster demigod by the ear and would not let go until he agreed to follow her. I need you, Moana.”

Moana didn’t know what to say to the surprising praise. “Lord Ika-tere, I-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Now listen, Here’s what I need you to do. The only way that you will be able to succeed is by giving him tribute from the three gods most important to him. That would be myself, my brother, and Tane.”

“Tane? Doesn’t your father hate him?”

“Well, yeah, but Tane is also one of the most important gods to my father. The words, ‘most important,’ don’t necessarily have to be positive. My father hates Tane. No doubt about it. But their hatred is so strong that if Tane were gone, my father most likely wouldn’t know what to do with himself.”

Moana nodded in understanding. “Okay, so how do I get the tribute?” Moana paused as another, more important question crossed her mind. “What is the tribute?”

“Good question,” Ika-tere reached into the water and swirled his fingers around. The water around his hand glowed a bright blue, which faded as he retrieved a necklace from the waves. “Here,” he said, and handed it to Moana. “Tu-te-wehiwehi will have one, as will Tane. You need to collect them all and give them to my father. Hopefully he will see these as a proper tribute.”

“Wait, hopefully?”

“Yes, hopefully. There’s always the off-chance that my father won’t like the tribute, or he might think that it isn’t sincere enough, or maybe he will see your ‘traveling buddy’ and decide to start fighting him instead of Tane. Who’s to say?” Ika-tere scowled at the water. “I hope that he does fight him,” he muttered under his breath. 

“You know, for someone who seems to hate Maui, you sure do talk about his a lot,” Moana commented. 

Ika-tere glared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Moana shrugged. “Okay.”

“If you are trying to imply-”

“I’m not implying anything, Lord Ika-tere,” Moana said, trying to keep the grin off her face.

“Insolent mortal,” Ika-tere grumbled, “do you think me an idiot?” He sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Just… Go find my brother. He’ll be on one of the southern islands.”

“How will I know which one?”

“Other than the increased population of reptiles in the area? The necklace should help guide you. Magic items such as these tend to feel the call of their partners. Now, do you have any other questions? Or can I go?”

Moana thought for a moment. “No, I think I get it. Thank you, Lord Ika-tere. For everything.”

“Whatever. I hope I do not see you again.”

With that, Ika-tere transformed himself back into a crab and dove into the water. Moana watched him disappear among the coral, then turned her attention to the necklace that he had given her. 

It was a simple enough piece of jewelry, though it looked like something a child would wear. On the end of a simple rope cord was a bleached-white shark tooth, and on either side of that was a small pearl, a black bead, and a blue bead. Moana slid her thumb over the tip of the tooth. Its points were dulled down, leaving it as nothing more than a decoration. She wondered what the other two necklaces looked like. 

Speaking of, all Ika-tere needed was for her to find Tu-te-wehiwehi and Tane, convince them to give her their versions of Ika-tere’s necklace, and then find Tangaroa and deliver the three necklaces to him. That sounded easy enough, if she wasn’t considering how long her journey would take, and the monsters that she and Maui would inevitably have to face. Easy except for all that.

Moana stared at the necklace for a little while longer before tying it around her neck. It would be easier to keep track of it if it was always with her. As soon as she put it on, the necklace began to hum and grow warm. Suddenly, the shark tooth levitated off of her chest and lay flat in the air. As she watched, the tip of the tooth moved to point at a spot in the distance, tugging her forward a little bit. 

“So that’s what he meant,” Moana mused to herself. 

As she fiddled with the necklace, a fruit fly buzzed by her ear. “Is he gone yet?” It whispered.

“Yeah, he’s gone.”

“Thank the gods,” the fruit fly huffed, and transformed back into Maui. “So what did Fish-face want? I want word-for-word quotation. No gisting. Also, where did you get that necklace in the twenty minutes I was gone, and why is it floating?”

“I’m not going to give you word-for-word quotation. You’ll have to be satisfied with the gist.” Moana ignored Maui’s groan of impatience. “So basically, we have to find Tu-te-wehiwehi and Tane and get a special necklace from each of them. And then we have give all three necklaces — including this one — to Tangaroa in the hopes that he finds them a suitable tribute and ceases his war against Tane.”

Maui stared at the floating shark tooth incredulously. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all. You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure. Ika-tere gave me the first of the three necklaces, so we’re good there. Now we just have to go and get two more.”

“That seems… Surprisingly easy. But seriously, why is that thing floating?”

“If I had to take a guess…” Moana moved around in a small circle, facing different directions as she turned. No matter which direction she faced, the shark tooth stayed pointed the same way. “It’s a beacon. Ika-tere said that this necklace would help us find Tu-te-wehiwehi. Wherever he is.”

Maui stared at the shark tooth. “Are you sure that we should follow it?”

“It’s not like we have a choice. Ika-tere didn’t exactly give us directions.” Moana made her way to the bow and readied the oar. “Unless you have any better ideas?”

“As a matter of face, I do… Not.” Maui deflated. “I do not. I just really don’t like the idea of taking directions from a magic floating tooth. That thing only points in one direction. Who knows where it could lead us? And it’s not like it has the ability to help us swerve around the more dangerous and deadly areas of the oceans. We could be sailing to Lalotai, or worse! We could literally be sailing to our deaths.”

“Wow, Maui. Since when were you the mother hen type of guy? I always took you for a trail-blazing adventurer, unafraid of danger,” Moana teased, knowing full well that Maui had always been the mother hen type of guy.

“I’m not!” Maui protested. “I just think that this is a dumb idea and it will probably get us both killed.”

“Probably,” Moana countered. “Honestly, Maui. You’d think that Heihei was back in the boat.”

Moana laughed as Maui tried to sputter out a comeback, and she laughed even harder when Mini-Maui pulled down his little chart and added yet another tally mark on Moana’s side. “Stay out of this,” Maui grumbled, and flicked the tattoo away. “Okay, girlie. We’ll follow your magic floating shark tooth. But if we accidentally hit a monster or an island because of that thing, I’m going to be very upset.

A monster did end up attacking them later. Maui would have been smug, except for the fact that it was all his fault. 

It had happened maybe an hour and a half after Maui had dived overboard to swim around for a bit. They had already been sailing for several hours, and Maui had started to get bored. The thing with him was that if he wasn’t doing anything, he tended to fidget. Since he wasn’t responsible for steering the canoe at the moment, he had been itching to move around, or do anything other than wait. 

“I’d been waiting on an island for a thousand years, cupcake,” he had said, like that explained everything. It kinda did, but that didn’t stop Moana from rolling her eyes so hard that her eyes felt sore for a couple of seconds afterward. 

“What a baby,” she muttered. “Gods and demigods… Why can’t they ever sit still for longer than thirty seconds?” She didn’t mind the silence, though. She loved Maui a lot, but there was hardly a quiet moment when he was around. There was always something going on with him. Some thought that he needed to share or conversation that needed to be had. 

It’s probably because of the island, she thought to herself. Of course it was probably because of the island. Moana couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to be alone for a thousand years, and completely stuck on an island not even a half-mile wide. It was no wonder Maui could never sit still, or felt the need to fill the silence. (No wonder he worried about her so much.)

Moana sat back and let the wind play across her face and through her hair. Besides the water, the wind was probably one of her favorite parts of sailing. She loved the cool sting on her cheeks as she sped through the water. She loved when the wind blew her hair every which way and tangled it in knots. She also loved picking apart the knots when it was Maui’s turn to sail. It was a relaxing exercise that often helped put her to sleep. Especially when Maui relented to her occasional begging and finger-combed her hair for her. The only downside to taking the knots out was that it often made her hair bigger and harder to pull back. She managed though.

As the waves whipped around her canoe, Moana watched as the sun began to sink lower in the sky. As she continued on, the stars began to peek one by one out from under the skies. Overall, a peaceful evening. 

That is, until Maui flew out of the water, screaming like a maniac. 

“WE’VE GOTTA GO!” He shouted, landing on the deck in a heap.

“MAUI!” 

Moana abandoned her post and ran to her friend. She took hold of his arm and helped him up. When she saw his face, she gasped. “Maui, what happened?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but first you have to promise not to get mad,” Maui said, grinning sheepishly through the blood and bruises. 

“Maui, what happened?” Moana’s voice dropped from concerned to scared. 

“Alright, alright. So there I was, swimming around, minding my own business, and generally having an all around good time. And wouldn’t you know it? I managed to stumble upon a whole coven of water-logged assholes who have no sense of humor.”

A hair-raising shriek reverberated through the ocean, stopping both Moana and Maui in their tracks.

“Uh… Maui?”

“I may have pissed them off a bit.”

Another shriek sounded, this one louder and closer.

“Okay, I pissed them off a lot. We should definitely start running now.”

“On it!” Moana pulled the sheet and whispered a quick prayer to the Ocean. “Ocean, please. We really need your help right now.” She wasn’t all that surprised when nothing happened, and Maui’s words from years ago rang through her mind.

The Ocean doesn’t help you, you help yourself.

Yeah, okay. Fair enough.

Moana captained her canoe like she would play an ukulele. She pulled at the canoe’s ropes and moved accordingly, riding the waves like she was born to. Which technically, she was.

Her canoe cut through the water like a knife. Moana tried not to look back, but when she dd, she saw a large trail of bubbles moving across the water at an alarming pace. 

“Maui! What’s chasing us?”

“Ponaturi!” Was the reply Moana got. 

“Ponaturi? I thought they were all dead!”

“Apparently not!”

The bubbles zig-zagged over the water’s surface, only getting faster and bigger as the sky darkened. 

“Maui, do something!” Moana begged.

“Do I look like I can do much of anything right now?”

He was right. He looked a little bit like he had been crushed by a small rock and then hit in the head by a harvest’s worth of coconuts. 

“Come on, just a bit further!” Moana strained against the water and her canoe. She didn’t know how she could possibly outrun whatever was chasing her (she had a hard time believing that Maui had managed to find a colony of mythical water goblins and piss them off enough for them to give chase), but she had to try. She couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.

The sun disappeared behind the horizon, and almost immediately, a legion of creatures rocketed out of the water and attacked the boat with a frenzy of spears and harpoons. Moana tried to keep the canoe going as Maui did his best to fend off the attacking creatures, trying to keep them away from Moana. 

The creatures kept coming. for every two that Maui knocked back into the water, three more rose up from the deep. 

One of the creatures made it past Maui and grabbed Moana with a cry of, “Flesh!”

Moana pulled the oar out of the water and smacked the creature aside. Several more creatures attacked her, and she hit as many as she could. Until one grabbed her by the neck and glared at her with a ferocity that rivaled Maui’s haka dance. 

“Foolish mortal, you will make an excellent meal,” it hissed, and pulled her off balance. Moana screamed as she fell off the boat and hit the water. Somehow she managed to kick away from the water goblin and break the surface. 

“Maui!” She called, desperate for air and his aid. Around her, the Ocean bubbled and swirled, like she was about to place Moana back on the deck like she had done hundreds of times before. Moana felt herself rise with the water, surrounded by a warm and comforting current, only to be beaten back down by what must’ve been a dozen of the Ponaturi. She barely had time to register the split-second change. 

Moana struggled against the bodies pushing and pulling her down, further away from Maui and her canoe. Above her, the light from the crescent moon was gone, and she could barely make out the shadow of her canoe. What little light she could see was fading fast. 

Bubbles flurried around Moana’s face, letting her inhale small breaths of oxygen, but the pressure and the lack of proper air caused the edges of her vision to go black. The last thing Moana felt before she blacked out completely was a mass of claws digging into her skin, and the gurgle of the Ocean around her as she tried to let Moana breathe.

Chapter Text

Maui couldn’t breathe. The Ponaturi had left almost as quickly as they came. they had left the canoe in ruins, and Moana… 

Moana was gone. 

The Ponaturi had taken her, and it was all his fault. Maui was nearly useless in that fight — a fight that was also his fault — and he hadn’t been able to protect Moana. And now she was gone. 

Maui lay on the deck for a long time, letting himself heal. As much as he wanted to charge hook first into the sea and rip the Ponaturi to shreds, he knew that he wouldn’t be any good to Moana in his condition. He’d learned that lesson decades ago, but that didn’t make the wait any more bearable. 

He groaned in pain at the burning sensation that engulfed his body while he healed. As soon as it didn’t hurt to move or breathe, Maui stood up and stretched. He surveyed the water around him and was disappointed but not surprised to find no trace of the Ponaturi.  

“Alright, if I was a coven of sneaky deep-sea assholes, where would I hide?” He muttered to himself. Maui felt pressure from his island tattoo and looked down to watch Mini-Maui dive into the inked waters in the form of a fish. “Other than underwater. Of course they’re underwater. I meant where underwater. Besides, it’s not like they sleep under there. If I’m going to get Moana back, I need to find the hide-away where those bastards sleep at night.” 

Mini-Maui rolled his eyes and pointed at the Mini-Moana above him, and then pointed at the islands.  

“I know I need to find where they’re keeping her! That’s literally what I just said!” Maui dragged a hand down his face. “Look, it’s still night. So they’ve got to be on their… whatever the heck it’s called. Land Lair? Aboveground Living Quarters? Evil Fala? Whatever. I’ve got to find it.” 

Mini-Maui jumped up to Mini-Moana’s tattoo and waved his arms frantically, pointed at her in between flails.  

“I know they’re going to kill her! No, I’m not freaking out. You’re freaking out. Stop it, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Maui fell back onto the deck and sighed. “What am I going to do?”

Above him, the mast creaked and groaned. Maui glared up at the fractured wood and huffed. The damage wasn’t as bad as Maui had first thought, but it would still take a while to fix. As he examined the rest of the canoe, he also noticed that the mainsail was almost completely torn off. The outrigger took quite a beating as well but fixing the mast and the sail would be his priority. 

As far as Maui could see, he had to fix the sail, fix the boat, find the island, save Moana, keep Moana from getting killed and eaten, keep her safe even though she’d probably want to keep going on with her stupid quest, and oh my gods they were both going to die. They were going to die. She was going to die, and he wouldn’t be able to save her, and—

A pinch from Mini-Maui made him realize that he was hyperventilating. Mini-Maui made an exaggerated series of motions that told Maui to slow down and breathe. Baby steps. Break it down into smaller talks and go from there.  

Baby steps. Right.

Step one: find something to fix the sail with, and then fix the sail. Step two: locate an adhesive to temporarily keep the mast together so that it won’t break at the worst possible moment. Step three: scour the area for where the Ponaturi could possibly he hiding their ugly faces at night. Step four: destroy the Ponaturi and rescue Moana. Preferably before they kill and eat her. 

Part of him wondered why he had to fix the boat in the first place. He could fly and carry Moana to safety.  But common sense arrived and reminded him that they still had a quest to complete, and it would be counterproductive to their mission if he lost Moana’s canoe.  

Okay, so. Step one. Fix the sail.

Maui dug through the hold until he found some thin rope and a needle, as well as the spare cloth kept for emergencies such as these. Maui set his focus on repairing the sail and tried not to think about the fact that Moana could already be dead. Negative thoughts swarmed Maui’s head until Mini-Maui stopped him by pinching his chest. Again. It was annoying and hurt a little bit, but it had succeeded in temporarily removing Maui from his negative headspace.

“Fix the sail,” he told himself. That’s all he had to do. He couldn’t help Moana until he had fixed the sail. So Maui grit his teeth and continued on. Fix the sail. Fix the sail. Fix the sail.

When he was done, Maui stood back from the mast and stared at his handiwork. It wasn’t a perfect job, but it would hold. 

Okay. What next?

Step two. Fix the mast.

Maui didn’t have an extra mast on hand, nor did he have a tree to fashion one with. But what he did have was coconuts. And more importantly, the sticky substance in their flesh. 

Back to the hold he went. 

Thankfully, Moana had the common sense to stock plenty of coconuts. Maui made quick work of them, stripping away their husks, and ripping the husks into strips. “Please hold,” he prayed as he wrapped the jagged strips around the mast. He didn’t have as many as he would have liked, so he only wrapped the strips around where the fractures were the worst and where he thought new ones would likely appear. When he finished, he gingerly pushed the mast back and forth. He sighed in relief when it didn’t give any immediate sign of giving way.

Step three. Find the Ponaturi. 

That one was going to be harder. It was still nighttime, but the stars around Maui told him that dawn would soon be approaching. Shit. 

On one hand, it would be easier for Maui to transform into a giant hawk and search for her that way, but that would require leaving the canoe behind and potentially losing it. Moana would never forgive him if he did that. Maui just needed a way to track Moana without leaving the boat. The easiest way would be by scent, but he didn’t have anything of hers on him to pick up the scent from. Unless…

Maui zeroed in on a dark spot near the bow. There were spatters of blood where Moana had been standing. Sharks could track blood, and Maui could turn into a shark. That meant that he could track Moana. 

Maui almost started crying from joy.  

“Hold on, Moana. I’m coming for you.”

 Moana woke up to a searing pain in her side. She opened her eyes the slightest bit and immediately regretted it. When she opened her eyes fully, she saw an ugly-looking creature crouching in front of her. Terrified, Moana scrambled backward, only to find that her wrists were bound. 

“Good morning, human,” the Ponaturus sneered at her. “Not for you, of course. It’s not even morning, and it’s definitely not good for you.”

Moana didn’t say anything in reply. The Ponaturus’s already grotesque face twisted even further, and quicker than lightning, he pulled a knife and jammed it into her thigh. Moana’s back arched as she screamed from the sudden pain. 

“Speak when you are spoken to, brat,” the creature hissed. “Now listen here, human. You are going to stay out here for the night, and you will warn us when the dawn is approaching. And in the morning, we will kill you and feast on your corpse. If you do this, we will give you a quick and painless death.”

Then the Ponaturus leaned in and twisted the knife. Moana began to sob. “And if you don’t, your death will be slower and more painful than you can imagine. You will be alive when we carve open your stomach, and you will watch when we take you apart piece by piece. Do you understand?”

Moana nodded her head, and the creature made a face that looked similar to a smile but had an element of wrongness to it. “Good,” he said and unsheathed the knife from her leg. Moana tried very hard not to scream when the knife was yanked out, ripping off part of her flesh with it. She screamed anyway. 

“Now then, we can’t have you dying before your time.” The Ponaturus guard said, and next thing Moana knew, her skirt was being pulled up and something was being tied around her leg. She watched the guard stand up and enter a large fale behind her. It didn’t take too long for Moana to break down completely. 

Moana had never felt as helpless as she did in that moment. The Ponaturi had made it very clear that she was expendable and that they had no qualms about hurting or killing her. In fact, they intended to kill her as soon as it suited them. The worst part was that there was no one around who could help her. 

Maui was gone. Or rather, he had been left behind. Moana didn’t know how Maui would be able to find her in time to save her. The Ocean… Moana didn’t know. But the Ocean hadn’t been able to stop the Ponaturi from taking her, and it wasn’t the Ocean’s style to directly interfere with Moana’s life unless all other options had been exhausted. Since the Ocean hadn’t done anything, Moana guessed that that meant that the Ocean believed that she could save herself. But Moana had no idea how she could possibly do that. 

There were hundreds of water goblins inside of the fale behind her. They were strong, fast, and they had weapons that they had already proved that they would use without hesitation. Even if Moana somehow managed to sneak away, where would she go? She was on an island somewhere, and she didn’t have the right resources to escape. There was no way out.

There was no way out. She was trapped and wounded, and as far as she knew, no one was coming to help her. She would never see her family again. 

 A dam broke inside of her at the thought. She would never see her family again. Her mother and father were probably sitting back on Hehi Pohaku and worrying about her and whether or not she was safe. Moana remembered promising her father that she would return home safely, and she cried ugly tears because she had broken her promise, and her neither her mother nor her father would know until after Maui told them. 

 Moana curled in on herself as she sobbed. She knew that she wasn’t helping anyone by crying, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her legs hurt, her arms hurt, her head hurt, and to top it off she was completely and utterly alone. She had nothing left. Not even the dignity of a peaceful death, like her grandmother had been granted. No, she was going to die alone and broken at the whim of the monsters that she had begged Tala to tell her more about before bedtime. 

Stop it, she told herself. You have to stop. She tried to hold her tears back and breathe like her mother taught her, but when she managed to stop crying for a moment, the stab wound on her leg brought her back to reality, and that reality was that she had to get out. What would Grandma think of you now? 

She would tell you to be brave. 

But how?

She would tell you to stop. She would tell you to remember. She would tell you to think for yourself instead of worrying about things that have not yet come to pass. 

She would tell you to remember. 

Remember. Think.

Think. Remember. 

Think. 

Moana remembered when she was younger her Grandma told her a story about the Ponaturi. It had been one of Moana’s favorites when she was young. She loved hearing about Tawhaki’s ingenuity and how he defeated the Ponaturi using his wits. He never used brute force, but instead thought his way around the problem and triumphed that way. 

That’s what Moana had to do now. She was scared now, but Tawhaki must have been scared too, right? His mother, the one who watched her husband brutally slaughtered and was placed in the same situation that Moana was in now, had to have been scared. But they still triumphed. And so would she. 

Moana swallowed as much of the pain as she could and surveyed her surroundings. It was completely dark except for the small amount of light that the stars and the thin crescent moon provided. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Moana to see the bones that littered the area around her. Some of them looked fresh. Others, not so much. Despite how sick Moana felt looking at them, bones meant tools, and that was something Moana desperately needed right now.

Moana stretched out her good leg as far as she could and reached for one of the closest bones. She grunted in exertion as her toes brushed over the smooth, curved surface of what felt like a rib, and then stretched even further. She caught the rib with her foot and dragged it back to her. As soon as the rib was close enough, she twisted her arms from behind her back and grabbed the bone off the ground. 

As soon as the bone was in her hands, she began to scratch it against the surface of one of the rocks behind her. Every so often, Moana stopped to test the sharpened edge against her fingers and the ropes. It was a slow process, but it was well worth it when the bone was finally sharp enough to cut through the coconut-fiber ropes holding her. She sawed at the ropes as quickly as she could. the angle of which she held the bone hurt her wrists, but she did not stop until her hands were free.

Moana stretched her arms and sighed in relief. Finally. She examined her wrists and grimaced at the bruises and indents from where the ropes cut into her skin. It was a miracle that they hadn’t started bleeding. Speaking of bleeding, her leg still wasn’t faring well. Moana pushed up her skirt and lightly traced the poultice that only just contained the horrific stab wound. She had to do something about that. 

Moana tore the top part of her skirt off and proceeded to tear the tapa cloth into horizontal strips, first making a cut with her bone knife where she wanted to rip, and the ripping it. It was a trick she picked up from the village healer, who was constantly ripping cloths into bandages and other things. She carefully bound her leg over the poultice and very slowly, balanced herself against one of the boulders near her and stood up.  

To say that putting weight on her left leg hurt would be a massive understatement. The poultice and makeshift bandages helped some, but it still felt like her leg was on fire. Moana hissed in pain and shifted her weight to her right leg. Better, but she still had to walk. 

Moana limped over to the side of the Ponaturi’s fale. Manawa-Tane, if memory served correctly. Manawa-Tane was built like no other fale Moana had ever seen. For one thing, it was much smaller height-wise than any fale she had ever seen. The bottom of the roof was about level with her forehead. And instead of tapa cloths rolling down from the thatched roof to block out a majority of the light, solid walls were in their place, with smaller tapa cloths dotting the sides. Moana pushes one of the tapa cloths aside out of curiosity and wasn’t all that surprised to find the hoard of Ponaturi resting behind it. Moana let the tapa cloth fall back into place and moved on.  

Obviously, Moana couldn’t escape from the Ponaturi right now. Not only did they outnumber her, literally over two hundred to one, but she had no way of getting off the island. Once again, she had to be like Tawhaki and use her wits to solve this problem. Although, he defeated an entire colony of Ponaturi almost single-handedly. Couldn’t she do that as well? Moana leaned against Manawa-Tane’s outer wall and thought to herself, carefully planning out how she could possibly achieve the same results that her predecessor had. She had an idea — well, half of an idea. But it could still work. Moana looked at the sky and saw that she still had a couple of hours before dawn broke. She could do this. She had to. Her life depended on it. 

Moana only had to make one lap around Manawa-Tane before she completed her task. As she made her way around the fale, she gathered as many small rocks and bones as she could from nearby and placed them on the sill of each opening to hold down the tapa cloth and to prevent it from being pushed aside. Then she made a small cut near the top of each of the woven cloths. Perfect, she thought to herself. 

The sky began to turn light purple right as Moana cut into the last tapa cloth. Dawn was approaching. Moana limped back to where the Ponaturi guard had left her as quickly and quietly as she could and waited. 

From inside Manawa-Tane, the gravelly voice of the guard from earlier came. “Tatau, is it dawn yet?” He asked. 

Tatau. That was what they called Tawhaki’s mother in the stories.

“Um, no. Not yet,” Moana answered. 

“When will dawn be approaching?” Came the voice again.

“In a couple of hours, I think. Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you when dawn is approaching.” 

The Ponaturi guard grumbled something unintelligible and then was silent. Moana assumed that he went back to sleep. She waited for a couple of minutes for something, anything, to happen. When nothing did, she sighed in relief. After a couple of moments of aggravation, Moana stood up to cover and cut the tapa cloth that functioned as Manawa-Tane’s entrance and exit. 

No one would be getting out of Manawa-Tane alive. 

Dawn had long since broken when the Ponaturi guard called out again. “Tatau, is it dawn yet?”

“Not yet,” Moana said, trying to ignore how tired the sun’s rays were making her feel. “It’s still night.”

“This night feels too long. Are you sure that you’re reading the stars right?”

“Positive. Maybe you’re just having trouble sleeping?”

The guard muttered a couple of expletives, but returned to silence and hopefully, sleep.

At this point, Moana felt like she was going to die. Not by the hands of the Ponaturi, but just in general. She was starving, dehydrated, and both the bandages and the poultice that covered her stab wound weren’t meant to last this long. Her whole body was in pain and dripping with sweat, and if she weren’t already sitting, she felt like she would have dropped from exhaustion. Just a little while longer, she told herself. Just wait until the sun gets a little bit higher. You can do this. Just a little while longer. 

Moana tracked the sun as it moved higher in the sky, and she occasionally pinched herself as hard as she could to keep herself awake. She was starting to draw blood. 

It was almost mid-day when the guard called out to her again. “Tatau, is it dawn yet?"

Moana hesitated, then replied. “Yes, the dawn is approaching.”

“Finally,” the guard huffed and began to wake up the other Ponaturi inside of Manawa-Tane. Moana’s heart was racing as she physically and mentally prepared herself for what would happen next, and resigned herself to the fact she if she didn’t do this exactly right, she was probably going to fail and the Ponaturi would kill her. 

As if she wasn’t going to die already.

Moana sprang into action. She pushed off her good leg and ran towards the fale, ignoring the sudden explosions of pain that erupted throughout her body. Starting with the door, she ripped the tapa cloth away from each opening, exposing the inside of Manawa-Tane to the harsh rays of the sun. Moana ignored the shrieks of the dying goblins as she ran. She didn’t stop once to look at the carnage. Even when she had torn down all of the tapa cloths and fell to the ground, exhausted, in front of Manawa-Tane, she didn’t look. 

Moana only turned to look after the agonizing screams and wails died out, and when she did look, there was nothing left except for the spoils of war: clothes, armor, weapons, and jewelry. 

Moana couldn’t help it. She threw up. As she coughed, the edges of her vision went dark, and Moana finally let herself succumb to her exhaustion.