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Over the Horizon
by AbsentAngel
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For Maui, time means nothing. At least it didn't - not until now.
A frail hand, wrinkled and weathered with age, pats his cheek. Dark eyes - familiar but not - smile down at him. He doesn't remember kneeling, but at some point he must have, because his knees are sunk down deep into the warm, white sand. The tattoo on his chest, the one he earned with her, burns.
Then she says his name, and he knows.
Moana.
It hasn't been that long - it doesn't feel like it's been that long - but here she is, leathered skin and graying hair. How? How could he have been away for so long?
She must see something in his expression, because her smile turns just a little bit sad. "It is good to see you again, old friend." She pats his cheek one last time before bringing her hand to rest on the wooden cane at her side. When he doesn't say anything (he can't - words are stuck in his throat) she sighs, shaking her head. "Oh, Maui." The look she gives him is full of pity, but he doesn't understand why. "Did you forget that I'm only human?"
No, he couldn't have. He teased her so often about it in the beginning. A mere mortal. But somehow he had never thought about the implications. He had never realized that he would suffer for it.
"I - didn't think..." his voice trails off, unable to finish. In his memories she was always unchanged - a bright, young woman with nothing but ocean and sky ahead of her. It never occurred to him that with every new moon, every new tree dotting the island beaches, that she was changing.
She nods, understanding without his help. Looking out across the water, the orange glow of the sunset warming her face and lighting her eyes, she hums. "Some things never change," she gives him a smile, full of a wisdom he never knew her to have, "and some things do."
"I should have come sooner." The words leave him without permission, but they ring true. It is a confession he didn't even know he needed to give, and somehow that makes it even worse.
She doesn't disagree. "Maybe," she shrugs, "but you are here now. And I am glad for it." The tip of her cane taps against his arm encouragingly. "Now get up - Maui, Shapeshifter, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero to All. There is someone waiting to meet you."
"Someone?" he echoes, feet sinking into the sand as he rises.
She hums, already beginning to walk the well worn trail that he knows must lead back to her village. "Well, the whole village will be thrilled to meet you, but there is someone in particular that I want you to meet."
He follows, if only because he doesn't know what else to do. The vision of her gingerly placing one foot in the front of the other is bound to haunt him. The steps are careful -small - nothing like the proud, powerful gait of his memories. She is no longer the girl with the wind in her hair and the call of the ocean in her heart; she is the elder who blesses the canoes that leave her behind - who tells stories instead of living them. He walks close enough to catch her if she falls, but a step or two behind so she can't see his face. His chest itches, and he doesn't need to look to know that the tattooed version of himself is shedding fat, inky tears.
She leads him to a hut in the middle of her village that stands taller than the rest. Her people stare at him, excited whispers praising and full of devotion. He doesn't look at them, doesn't give them a show. In his hand his hook feels heavier than ever, and he knows he couldn't even muster a convincing smile if he tried.
Inside the hut is a young woman that looks so much like the one he once knew that he staggers at the entrance, but the eyes are different and when she smiles it isn't the same. The woman looks between his hook, him, and Moana rapidly - an excited smile blooming. "Is it really him?" she asks, and Maui thinks that it is far too soft - the rustling of palm leaves in a breeze.
"It is." Moana ushers her forward and, standing side by side, the differences between them are even more obvious. Then she gestures to the bundle in the woman's arms - a bundle Maui hadn't even cared to notice -but when her in gnarled fingers pull the fabric aside there a tiny face of a newborn that peers back at him. Surprised, his gaze jumps to Moana's, searching for an explanation in her wizened stare.
"This is my grandson." Moana tells him, dark eyes full of love and brimming with pride. "His name is Maui."
He doesn't know what to say, but his eyes fall from Moana's to the newborns face without thought. He is beautiful in a way he had never known humanity to be capable of. A legacy. A surviving link. Hope fills him, brimming his eyes and filling his heart.
He has his grandmother's eyes.
AN: Because my three old is on a Moana kick.