Moana calls for them as she sleeps. As she dreams she cries out for her sister, for Arihi who clenches her rag in white-knuckled fists. As she writhes she calls for Sina and Tui, who sit together in their fale, holding hands as they watch poison ravage through their daughter. But in the darkest moments, as she whimpers and sobs through a pain that Tui knows cannot be attributed to the poison alone, she begs for Maui.
The curse of ciguatera is not the pain - not physical, anyway. Their healer had warned Tui, seconds before practically fleeing the fale, that the worst would come in the form of hallucinations. Visions, half-imagined, half-revisited - the worst memories of the afflicted.
Tui had been prepared to hold his daughter as she screamed, shuddering in memories of her island withering, through the shaking trembling grief as she pleads for her grandmother. He can dry her tears, he can clean her sweat, he can hum to her as she aches. He can tell her stories of her grandmother and press a whole, living apu leaf to her hand as she worries, he can take these pains away.
But there are some for which he can do nothing.
For these, neither Arihi nor Sina have remedy. However many soothing words they provide, their voices dipped and shaking in concern, none of them can alleviate the quiet sobs as Moana calls for Maui.
These moments are the worst. These hitched, almost-silent breaths as Moana relates her darkest fears. That she has failed as Chief, that she is no longer a part of her people, that her best friend will once more flee into the sky, leaving her to face her demons alone.
Though she cannot put these thoughts to words, it is the way that her voice breaks, the way her eyes well, when she rasps for a soothing hand, a warm embrace that will not come.
As Tui looks around, he sees the immortal fled, and it is for his daughter's sake that he does not curse the demigod's name.
Several months ago, Tui noticed a stash of fibers wrapped around the demigod's wrist. He thought little of it until one evening, the demigod approached him and Sina, hair tied off his back, and asked to tell them a story. His voice was nothing of the boisterousness of his storytelling; it was unsure and reserved, as though he were afraid they would turn him away.
Moana lay sleeping, exhausted, on the floor of the fale tele. As she was wont to do, Moana puts the worries of her people over even herself; it was not an uncommon sight for the people of Motunui to see their Chief taking an unplanned nap in some corner of their island as her body finally demanded she rest.
Tui did not miss the gentleness in the demigod's eyes as he regarded Tui's daughter. From the small smile across Sina's face, it did not evade her either.
It was with ill-concealed nervousness, fingers twitching toward the band that tied his hair in place, that Maui told them of his rejection. His voice trembled ever-so-slightly as he showed them the final tattoo on his back, his mother casting him toward the sea.
Then Maui closed his eyes, steeled his fists, and looks toward them with open palms. In that deep voice used to recount hundreds of stories, of journeys and adventures, Maui recounted his greatest mistake.
Maui had abandoned Tui's daughter to face Te Ka alone.
Because Moana would never relate this episode. For this reason, he tells their story. Even if the demigod had tried to hide it, his regret was plain on his face. The downturn of his eyes, the tremor in his voice, the way he stared more at the ground than the unwavering gaze of Tui himself. For this reason and this reason alone, Tui granted the demigod an absolution that Moana had surely given without thought - forgiveness.
For he had seen the way that his daughter holds this immortal dear. For Maui, he knew, Moana would do almost anything. Moana's love was as deep and infinite as the sea, and this demigod has been blessed with it. Tui believed, seeing the pain in his eyes, that Maui might be worthy.
Tui sees now that his daughter's infinite love was not returned. The demigod Maui is nowhere to be found. Even as Moana's voice cracks on the syllables of his name, as she calls for the warmth that his voice alone can bring, he does not come.
He is nowhere to be found on Motunui. Though Tui had not asked, the village sets out in search of Maui. Some, Tui knew, believes him to be Moana's only hope for recovery.
Moana dies.
It is little wonder they could not find him. Maui spent years hiding, years from the company of humans. It is clear to Tui, in that moment, that Maui has long forgotten how to love.
Moana used to laugh, to poke fun at her demigod, how the hull of the boat with a caricature of himself emblazoned on the sail was the largest of their fleet. Fitting, she would prod, for a demigod with such a large appetite - for food and for mischief.
Tui does not tell Sina where he was bound, with a torch in one hand and a knife in the other.
He should have burned that boat a long time ago.
But it is little surprise to him that Sina finds him anyway. Standing in the Cavern of the Ancestors, the firelight plays across his face, casting large shadows behind him that feel only like footsteps he needs to fill. Sina joins him, takes his hand in her own. It is only for her that Tui allows the contact.
There is little of love he can feel, staring at the sail with the demigod's face grinning tauntingly at him. In that moment there is nothing he despises more.
For Tui had trusted. When Maui had approached him, him and his wife those weeks ago, Tui had believed him - that never again would Maui run. For those weeks, Tui had begun to believe that Moana and Maui might become the stuff of legends.
Moana died alone. Tui no longer believes.
When the warmth of his wife's hand around his own becomes unbearable, Tui detaches his hand from hers. He steps forward, torch held aloft. The warmth of it burns his fingertips, sizzling along the back of his palms - but it is nothing against the disapproval in the eyes of his wife.
For a long moment, Tui hesitates. His Sina always knows, always understands. Perhaps in this, she is right.
But Tui looks again toward the thin facsimile of the demigod, leering at him, and his mind leaps toward Moana, breathless and pale.
It is with grim satisfaction that Tui watches the sail shrivel to ash.
Tui awakes, the night that marks two weeks after his daughter's death, to a green hum filling their fale. At his side, Sina watches the grass around them sprout with eyes open wide with shock.
As he stares toward forests surrounding them, flower sprout from the ground, turning their vibrant colored heads toward them. In a ring they lift their faces, each one peering toward the two parents once deep in slumber.
Sina speaks Te Fiti's name, and Tui cannot tell if it is an accusation or a prayer.
The green coalesces very briefly to a beating heart, then a whisper of an assurance. It is little more than the gentle caress of the honey-tinged wind, like the breath of life; but Tui has no doubt as to its conjurer.
The Goddess of Life herself, manifest on Motunui.
Tui is not sure if he should laugh or cry, because he cannot believe it. At his side, Sina does both, looking at him and the miracle around them with incredulity written on every feature. Hope, hope and joy, fill him so that he feels he would burst. He holds onto his wife to keep himself grounded, and he cannot tell whether it was he or she who pulled them into an embrace.
There is none who could do this but Moana, but their precious daughter, and for this miracle Tui weeps.
The next day, Tui calls upon every last one of his fishermen. Tells them to cast their nets wide. He will need squid aplenty, as many as can be harvested in two weeks' time.
Then, his huskers. From them, he requests as many of their fronds as can be spared.
Finally, from Sina, he asks the knowledge to create a sail.
This, he will create with his own two hands. His wife's hands are patient and gentle as they show him how to weave together the fibers, how to keep the largest of the holes from tearing their way into the sail. In two weeks he creates three sails, each more cohesive than the last. Some nights he works with nothing but the light of the stars overhead and the fire crackling in front of him, hands aching and calloused long after Sina has gone to sleep.
The fourth he makes alone, and it is perfect.
At his side sits jars and jars of ink. Tui picks a brush, the black already staining his fingertips, and closes his eyes. Behind his eyelids burns the image of the sail just before he had burned it. With a deep, steeling breath, Tui sets his brush to the sail and begins to paint.
It is with a pang of deja-vu that he spots a sail, burnished with the emblem of Te Fiti, top the horizon with sails toward Motunui. There is nothing of condemnation in Sina's gaze as he meets her eyes, but guilt suffuses him regardless. Somehow, somehow, their demigod has done the impossible - for he would know the small figure guiding their boat home even from leagues away.
Somehow, Maui has brought Moana home.
They do not run to the shore. There is no need - Moana is with Maui, and Tui knows now that there is no need to fear, so long as they are together.
Moana cries. This, this is their daughter, with so much strength and fire, who cries so easily and loves so much. And as Tui opens his arms to her, he finds that he has room in his embrace for Maui too.