Starstruck, a moana fanfic

My first shot at a 4-and-1 type gig! I tried to keep these short, but you know my writing, that didn't end up happening. I think this is like seven thousand words total. Look, my hand just slipped for four hours straight.

Happy, happy birthday to my dear friend paperjamBipper! You're so old now, you shmuck. Congratulations. Hope you enjoy the gratuitous amounts of fluff I stuck in here, just for you. :)

It's when the first wave breaks on the deck of their ship that Aronui decides, quite firmly, that she does not like storms.

Even shielded as she is from the worst of the rain by her mother's sturdy legs and swollen belly, there pellets of water sting against her eyelids, and Aronui has to squint to see the deck of the boat mere feet in front of her. Her hairband was lost long ago to the frenzy of the wind, which whips her hair around her face. When Aronui spares a hand to try and tame it, she ends up nearly ripping off the right half of her head.

"Hard about to port!" shouts a familiar voice, commanding against the fury of the storm.

Aronui looks over to see Moana astride the canoe. Despite the writhing waves that tower around her Moana looks at ease, balanced perfectly atop the edge of her canoe while wrestling with the halyard in both hands. She's planted at one end of her tiny craft, which sways dangerously in the water, and is somehow using the boat's instability to clamber up the side and look intently at Kara.

Kara, their helmsman, raises a conch to her lips and blows a signal to the rest of their fleet. Sound doesn't travel far on the rocky waves, but it goes far enough - this fleet is a small one, Aronui thinks she counted five boats total, which includes Moana's. Then Kara yanks hard on the halyard, shifting their boat slowly through the water.

Seeing the larger craft moving in the right direction, Moana becomes a flurry of movement, seeming little more than another fixture on the boat itself as she practically flips it in the water, then flits toward the next boat. Her eyes are narrowed in fierce determination as she wrestles her way through the churning water, repeating her order in a commanding voice that can be heard even atop the wailing of the wind.

Something large and heavy slams against the deck next to her. Aronui jumps against her mother's leg and for a panicked second Aronui fears that the mast has snapped, but when she looks up it's just Maui.

"How're you likin' your first storm, kiddo?" he asks in his familiar deep rumble, voice improbably light and carefree against the full force hail that slams into his unprotected head. Aronui, protected a bit by the slight overhang protruding from their storage space on the waka, watches in slight awe as he blinks away the impact like it's nothing. He shoots her an impish grin. "Exciting?"

Aronui considers his words for a moment, then shakes her head decisively.

Maui laughs, winking at Rangi, who sits to Aronui's left, and ruffles her hair. "Don't you worry, kiddo," he says, and somehow Aronui already feels better at his carefree demeanor. "Moana's leading us on outta here, and you know you're in good hands with Kara."

"Okay."

"That's the spirit! Speakin' of which, I'm gonna go help her out. Take care of yourself and your mom, okay, Aronui?"

Aronui nods vigorously. It's hard to forget sometimes that Maui is an actual full-grown adult, much less that he's lived for thousands of years. Her own eleven pale in comparison. Besides, Maui doesn't act like an adult. Especially not around Moana. Even though he's a demigod and she's their Chief, Aronui's mother says they act like children together, always laughing and joking.

Moana doesn't look much one for joking right now though, Aronui notes, that lightness in her chest tightening again at the sight of her Chief struggling atop the waves. She's working her way painstakingly through the ocean, face a stony mask of concentration and gritted pain.

Aronui squints over the edge of their canoe, worried. They have Maui on their boat and Moana's was helping the two off to the left, but there's another boat straggling behind them. The wind's really getting to it, and their navigator is struggling, and Aronui thinks she can make out Tamati's locks flying wildly around his face.

He pauses to dash them away, and his boat is swallowed by the rain.

"Mom!" Aronui yelps, tugging insistently on her skirt. "Mom, Tamati's boat - "

Aronui's mother follows her arm out into the storm, face draining of color as she realizes what must have happened. But before either of them can say anything else, a little triangle of orange swirls impossibly quickly around the side of their boat, speeding back into the storm.

Moana.

Aronui unlatches from her mother's leg. Against the waves, Moana's profile is unmistakable - she stands firm against the deck, unmovable and unshakeable, veering away from safety and after their lost craft.

Aronui blinks her eyes against the pounding rain; and when she opens them again, Moana and her bright sail are gone.

Without letting herself think twice, Aronui skids across the deck. It's hard with all this rain, this water that seeps into the wood and makes it slippery and treacherous especially for feet as small as Aronui's own, but she makes her way with determination across the craft. With one final half-leap, Aronui latches two-handedly onto Maui's calf.

"Aronui?" he asks incredulously, picking her up and holding her at eye-level, shifting himself to block the worst of the rain with his body. "What're you doing up here, kid?"

"It's Moana!" Aronui gasps, because from this high up even with Maui in front of her the wind tears her breath from her throat. It fills her ears with a horrible howling that makes even the flap of the sail feet from her face seem very far away. "We lost a boat and Moana went in after it!"

Maui sets her back down very, very carefully, and looks back over the waves. "Into the storm?"

"Yeah!"

"That," Maui says slowly, "is not good."

Aronui steps away. This isn't Maui anymore. Aronui's never seen him like this. He's always happy and smiling and joking, ribbing Moana with some new pun or entertaining Aronui with a new story and a new tattoo, or maybe even feigning a fear that seems too large for his face. Sure, there's fear in his face now, but it's not fake. It's small, small and drawn and closed, and there's a little bit of rage there, just enough to set Aronui's teeth on edge and make her take another step backward. This Maui is scary and she doesn't like him.

The rain makes hair big and stringy and it spills uncontrolled over his shoulders. He shifts his hook in his hand, pointing it downward so that the point scrapes a bit of wood off the deck, and lowers himself to the wood. It's just like those hawks on Motunui, how they would hunch in on themselves before flaring their wings and taking to the sky.

Aronui's a little kid. She knows this. But even she knows that birds don't fly in storms like this. They have all those soft feathers that don't work in rain, lots of little budded white feathers that turn gray in water. And the currents of the winds in storms are even more confusing than the ones in water. Even though Maui's a big hawk, he's still a bird and flying in this mess would be crazy. There's no way that this man, demigod though he might be, would jump into a storm this bad. That would just be stupid.

That man, demigod though he is, jumps into the storm. His wings are tight against him as he dives, pinned against his sides, and then they flare and Aronui can't see him any more.

Some say the ocean speaks to her, sings to her like an old friend. Some say she speaks back; that she talks to the currents, hums to the waves, soothes the ravaging waves themselves with the power of her voice. Others say she is the ocean, others still its goddess. That the Voyager Chief will act as the spirit and guide of their people, forever one with the water that connects them.

To sail on the seas with the Voyager Chief is a privilege and a blessing; for boats never sail quite so smoothly again, the wind never pushes them forward quite so eagerly, after she disembarks. She rises with the sun and sleeps with the moon and as the sun disappears over the horizon she can be seen, every day and night, dancing with the waves.

When the Voyager Chief first arrived, they bowed. For how could she not be a child of the gods, the way the tide melts under her hands? The way the earth itself bloomed under her footsteps?

But with a laugh that flowed atop the sand like the wind chiming through the trees she waved away their deference, reassured them in a voice shockingly human that there was no need for obsequience.

For months now, the Voyager Chief herself has taught Ihaia's people to sail. Boat-by-boat, sailor-by-sailor, she returns them to the water. She is a common sight on Ihaia's island, wandering their paths unaccompanied. Sometimes she stoops to whisper something into a child's ear and make them laugh uproariously, other times she counsels their Chief in the gravest of tongues; sometimes she plucks a coconut from the ground to toss it into the nearest basket, other days she spends atop their waves teaching their people to navigate the worst of storms the sea can offer.

It is early morning, the sun new and glistening with the haze of the sea, when the piercing call of a hawk sounds over Ihaia's head. At first he thinks little of it, for hawks are a common sight on this island, until his son, who helps him tug their fishing boat out to sea, taps his shoulder and points upward.

Instantly, Ihaia can tell that this hawk isn't native to his island. For one, it's huge - its two reddish-brown wings swoop down toward their island, and when flared they span longer than the boat that he and his son have set against the shore, huge and powerful. Its talons are sharpened to deadly curves, a wicked smile curling its beak. Its eyes are sharp and intelligent in their small sockets, and as Ihaia watches the hawk hovers above his head with mighty strokes of its wings, searching the shore for something.

Then the hawk finds what it's looking for and streaks toward the shore. Ihaia follows it with his eyes and finds the Voyager Chief standing on the beach. It takes Ihaia a moment to realize that she's smiling, a full-on grin that beams around her, like the light of the sun wreathed itself around her form. She breaks into a sprint from the paths leading down toward the waves, laughing as her footsteps strike against the sand. The hawk swoops toward her then circles around her head once, twice, and she reaches out to it, laughing all the while.

There's a crowd, now - not the least because this is a hawk of the likes of which they have never before seen, but also because they have never seen the Voyager Chief so happy and carefree. There are no worries on her face, nothing of the quiet reservation that she projects around them; just gleeful, unadulterated joy.

Then there's a flash of blue light, flashing into the eyes of dozens of onlookers, and the hawk takes the form of a man.

Ihaia's mind has a split-second to process that the man dropping lightly to the sand is Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Shapeshifter and Trickster, Hero to All, before the Voyager Chief launches herself at him.

The demigod lets out a bark of laughter not unlike a bird's chuff. With a grin on his face to mirror the one stretching across that of the Voyager Chief's, he plucks the her up off the sand and wraps his arms around her shoulders. Ihaia watches in shock as they embrace, eyes closed in contentment.

"It's been too long, Curly," Ihaia hears the demigod murmur quietly.

She hums a gentle agreement, and Ihaia marvels at the sheer joy on her face - never before has he seen her this happy, this content, not even on those scarce moments in the early morning where he would catch a glimpse of her dancing with the waves on their shore. Impossibly, the Voyager Chief smiles wider, and tilts her head to rest against his shoulder.

"Missed you too, Maui."

"And you know what they say, Akenehi," Punga says, running a hand over the top of his lizard-adorned scepter in a manner he probably thinks is menacing.

"What do they say, Punga," Akenehi returns with as much interest in his tone as he can muster, trying not to let his boredom show on his face. To be honest, he's kinda lost track of Punga's schemes - between the last shark-hunt and Ugly Competition of the Underworld, Akenehi has stopped caring about the fine nuances of Punga's antics.

"That the demigod Maui has lavished his affections on this human!"

"That one," Akenehi repeats unimpressedly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to where the remarkably unremarkable human girl sits placidly in her makeshift stone cell. She's not doing much of anything, just watching them with interest and decidedly not screaming in fear. "He chose that one."

"Yes, Akenehi! They say he will do anything to save her!"

Punga is way too excited about this. Here's a god, worked up about capturing a demigod, and sure Akenehi can understand how having the ability to shapeshift might be nice, but Punga can command entire armies of sharks. Akenehi's pretty sure that, in the water at least, Punga's abilities trump Maui's any day. Well, whatever - if his master wants to throw out his own back trying to get his hands on some cruddy hook, then that's his ordeal to go through and Akenehi's spectacle to laugh at.

Even if Akenehi's pretty sure his master is severely ill-informed. There's nothing particularly special about the mortal girl sitting placidly in her cell. In fact, she looks spectacularly normal, the same curly hair and brownish eyes of all mortals, same cheeks squished up in apparent boredom. If Akenehi had to hazard a guess, he'd say she was special just for her apparent inability to feel self-preservation. In the same room as a god, and she's not even pleading for him to spare her life? She knows Punga wants to use her as bait and then disembowel her, right?

"They say, Akenehi, that he gave up his hook and his own life to save hers," Punga shares in a conspiratorial whisper.

Oof, that must be rough. Even the minor spirits know how important Maui's hook is to him.

Wait a second. "Punga, he's still alive."

Punga scoffs, waves a hand through the air dismissively. "He didn't actually die, but the thought was there. Anyway! Now we shall see just how far he'll go to save his little mortal," Punga grins to himself, and Akenehi rolls his eyes unseen behind his master's back.

With a flick of Punga's wrist, visions of water swim into sight around them, rough and uneven as if projected onto the wall in front of him. There are little teeth fringing the edges of the vision, like Akenehi's sitting inside the mouth of a shark, and he swallows a small shudder. Not a vantage point he'd ever want to experience personally.

The shark swims a little bit, showing a whole lotta wave and sky on Punga's little viewscreen. The shark swims around for a bit, then finally surfaces near a fairly small island with too many rocks and too few trees. Clearly, not a favorite of Tane's.

Akenehi's never seen Maui up close, at least not in person. The demigod who hulks in front of him is a big guy, sure, and the tattoos are certainly impressive, but Akenehi kinda expected someone...scarier. Because right now Maui just kinda looks bored.

He's over a bit to the right of the shark, tapping his feet to a rhythm that only he can hear and skipping stones over the surface of the ocean. The only noise around him is the tune he's humming to himself, the rhythmic waves of the ocean and the discordant squawking of a lone seagull that ruffles its feathers on a rock behind him.

"Maui!" Punga greets grandly.

Maui starts a bit at the name, looking out over the ocean as if looking for the source of the noise. "Huh?"

"Maui! Down here!" Punga calls through the shark-mouth impatiently, and Maui looks down at the surface of the ocean.

Maui cocks his head, the movement uncannily birdlike, before settling himself in a crouch on the shore. He peers into the mouth of the shark bobbing, apparently unbothered, before the shore of this disgraceful hunk of sand called an island. "Punga?"

"The one and only! Listen carefully, Maui, because I have information that I think will be of, well..." Punga trails off with apparent glee, "great interest to you."

Maui flicks a glance around him, then looks back down at the shark in obvious disinterest. "What is it, Punga?"

"I regret to inform you, Maui, that I have captured your mortal! Should you not give yourself up to me within two nightfalls, I will not hesitate to tear her organs from her body!"

Akenehi waits for the inevitable panic, the griping, the oh-no-whatever-shall-I-do that tends to happen when Punga gets the novel idea of taking someone hostage. But instead of letting the tears flow, Maui blinks at the shark, the news clearly setting in, and then laughs.

"What, you mean Moana?" he chuckles.

"Moana?" Punga repeats, like he's tasting the word for the first time, then half-turns toward Akenehi. "Akenehi! What is the mortals' name?" he calls, snapping his fingers in the girl's direction.

"Oh, that's me!" the girl interrupts unabashedly, smiling politely. "My name's Moana. Nice to meet you," she calls back, entirely too cheery for her dire circumstances.

"Then. Well. Yes! I have Moana in my clutches!" Punga replies, turning his full attention back to the mouth of the shark. "Should you not come for her by the end of the second nightfall, I will not hesitate to - !"

"Hey, Moana," Maui calls right over Punga's declarations, and that's definitely a hint of amusement in his voice. "You injured?"

"Nope!"

"No profusely bleeding cuts? Because those count as injuries, Moana, you can't keep brushing those off like they're nothing."

The girl's full-on grinning now, like this is funny to her. "That was one time - "

"That was twice, and the second time you bled all over the deck! Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of wood, Curly?"

"Actually, yes I do, might I remind you of the last time you tried to flip Tamatoa and got - "

"Hey!" Punga yelps. "Shut up, Maui, I'm threatening your mortal! Are you coming or not?"

"Oh, Maui! I'm definitely being very threatened right now!" the girl says, twisting her face downward in an appropriate frown. It might work on Punga, who's a couple centuries out of practice with mortals, but Akenehi sees the straining wrinkles around the edges of her mouth that means she's trying desperately not to burst out into peals of laughter. "I need a big strong demigod to come save me, Maui. Please help me, great Maui."

"I don't think I'm strong enough for the job, Moana," Maui shakes his head ruefully, staring right into the shark with that same expression on his face. "You see, Punga's a very intimidating god. It would take at least one of the higher deities - you know, Tane or one of them," he suggests, flipping his hook cheerily, "to come save you now."

Akenehi blinks. That's impossible. Those two can't see each other. They should not be able to make the exact same face.

The girl places a hand over forehead in mock-distress. "Then I am certain to die here, alone and unaided!"

"Yes!" Punga yelps, wresting the conversation back toward him. "Yes, your mortal is gonna die here, alone and unai...unaged...alone and afraid! I'm waiting for your tears, Maui!"

Maui roars out a laugh that scares the lone seagull off its rock, sending it flapping away in fear. "I dunno, Punga."

"What do you mean, you don't know - "

"You see, there's one very important thing you've forgotten."

"What?" Punga snaps.

"I don't have an oar."

Even Akenehi, who prides himself on being decidedly more quick-witted than his ostentatious master, is a bit lost at the non-sequitur. "You can turn yourself into a shark and swim over here," Punga points out.

"No, I mean I don't have our oar. And if I don't have it, that means Moana does."

"What, the mortal?"

Maui looks toward the shark in exasperation. "Didn't we establish that was her name like two minutes ago?"

"Yes, but - I have a bad memory okay!"

There's a quiet click from beside him, and a door that was definitely closed a minute ago swings open. Akenehi freezes.

"As I was saying," Maui's voice starts up again, still unimpressed and laced with an undercurrent of mirth. "If I don't have the oar, that means Moana does. And I almost feel bad for you, I really do."

"What? Why?"

"Oh, by the Gods - you know what, never mind." The girl emerges from the door, a sturdy-looking and decidedly thick oar hoisted in her hands that she definitely did not have three minutes ago, and even though it looks kinda heavy she holds it like it weighs little more than a feather. Akenehi keeps his gaze locked forward and flattens himself against the wall. "Implications are so lost on you. I'm not going to tell you, you'll find out soon enough."

"Maui, you're being vague again. I hate it when you do that."

"You'll get it pretty soon, no worries." Maui flashes a classic wink toward the shark, and with one sharp motion snaps the shark's jaws shut.

"How dare he!" Punga rages toward the viewscreen, completely oblivious to how Akenehi is pressing himself against the wall, trying to decide whether he's more frightened of a cheerful, predatory mortal or the raging god in front of him. "Here I am, with the mortal captive that Maui values more than his own life, and he blows me off like I'm some sorry, two-rate, no-good - "

Smack.

"He talks a lot," the girl comments as Punga crumples to a heap in front of her feet. She hefts her hook, points it blade-down toward the god's uncovered head, and gives it a couple of experimental prods. "Even Maui doesn't talk that much, and let me tell you, he can sing songs about himself. Entire songs." She sighs ruefully. "It'd be impressive if it weren't so arrogant."

A little whimper emerges from the vicinity of Akenehi's throat.

The girl looks up like she's just remembered he exists. "Oh! I forgot about you, sorry about that." She drops her hook back to her side, sticks her hand toward him. He eyes it in plain trepidation, self-preservation overruling any sense of manners he might have had in his mortal days.

"That's fair," she says, and gives him a friendly nod instead. Akenehi vaguely considers fleeing. "Hi, I'm Moana, I'm not gonna hurt you. Can I ask a favor though?"

Akenehi nods, because he's not sure what else to do in the face of the oar that she holds easily at her side.

"Great, thanks!" She nudges Punga out of the way with her foot, then plants herself decisively in front of the wall across which Maui's face had flashed not two minutes ago. "Could you help me figure out how to work the shark?"

Two months ago, the demigod Maui taught Marama's people to sail. It was a hard road to follow - this was an ancient art, long-forgotten, and many times it caused his people to stumble over the waves.

But it was as though an old slumbering beast was awoken amongst his family, because the persistence of his people unparalleled, then and now: despite the capsizes and crashes they might face atop the cresting waves, their new voyagers wake up day after day eager to learn.

The demigod had stayed just long enough to teach them the ropes atop the waves. Every morning he would join them on the shore, teach them to see the waves, how the sea behaves, how to see the sky, the way the seagull flies; and every evening they would return, exhausted and invigorated at the same time.

During his stay they demanded no explanation for his return, and he offered nothing to them. He said only that, with his return, the seas would be clear of sailing. The only enemy they would have to fear, he had told them with a roguish wink, was the waves.

Then, once he deemed them seaworthy, he took off for another island to do the same, the hull full of gifts from Marama's grateful people.

During the two months after the demigod set off from Marama's island, their short voyages have extended steadily longer and longer. Not yet have they been away from their island for more than three days, but the best of their wayfinders grow only more skilled as time passes, and their Chief Kaheru expects that within the month they will set out on a week-long journey to find the nearest of the islands in their archipelago.

Marama sits in the fale tele, passing idle time with his son Hau. It's with some measure of amusement that he would later recall, crystal-clearly, that he was in the midst of throwing his son in the sky when the Chief entered. Marama catches his son, draws breath to greet his Chief, then realizes abruptly who follows her.

Maui's large silhouette is unmistakable against the burnished tapa of their fale tele. Instantly, Marama twists into a kneel. Around him, a half-dozen villagers do the same, caught off-guard by the sudden presence of godliness in such proximity.

"No need for all that," the demigod waves them off, laughing as if at a joke. "I hear the sailing's gone well, and thought we'd drop by!"

"Indeed it is, Maui. Our people are indebted to you," Chief Kaheru says, and bows once more.

The fale tele reverberates with the sound of footsteps as some of the village children, hearing his voice, scramble toward him. Even before Marama straightens from his kneel, his young son has joined the small horde surrounding Maui. No doubt that it is only the presence of their Chief that keeps those eager faces from clamoring for a story.

"Eh, it's part of my job," he says lightly. He and Chief Kaheru exchange another couple of pleasantries, then she turns to the woman behind Maui.

Marama blinks it slight surprise. He hadn't even noticed the woman standing next to Maui, overshadowed by the presence of a demigod. But the woman appears remarkably unruffled to be in the presence of a legend, and converses quite calmly with their Chief before nodding respectfully toward her. Marama squints in her direction, trying to work out what seems so odd about her, but at that moment Maui claps his hands.

"Whaddya say then, kiddos?" he asks, a winning grin covering his face. "Story time?"

His words are met with a whole host of excited cheers as the children press closer to the demigod. He sits, and at his side the strange woman does the same. Though, where Maui pretty much drops to the floor, the woman folds herself neatly at his side with a quiet smile.

"Tell the one about the giant octopus!"

"No! The one about coconuts - "

"What about Te Fiti?"

The requests come pouring in, and even though Marama is hyperaware of the presence of an immortal on his island he can't help but crack a smile at the children's unadulterated enthusiasm. "Yes, demigod," Marama weighs in cheerily, inclining his head in mischievous respect. "Why not the story of Te Fiti?"

The woman and Maui exchange a smile, and for some reason, she bursts out laughing. "Yeah, Maui," she says, and Marama's shocked to see the light of humor twinkling in her eyes. "Tell the story of Te Fiti! That's always a good one."

"Uh-huh, I know it's your favorite, Curly," he laughs, and reaches over to ruffle her hair. But the strange woman is too fast for him, ducking out of his way in one practiced movement and resurfacing with a smirk. "Okay, kiddos - and not-kiddos - " he jokes, nodding toward Marama and the adults gathered around him to hear his tale, "one story of Te Fiti, coming right up.

"So before I get too into the tale," he says, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, "I need to tell you about a little girl named Moana. She was the daughter of the village Chief. When I met her, she was, hmm...what, eight or nine years old - "

"She was sixteen!" the woman - Curly? - yelps insistently.

" - so ten or eleven years old," Maui continues with an impish grin. "She was the Ocean's Chosen One, and the ocean picked her when she was young - no older than you are now!" he grins, ruffling Hau's hair. The little boy sits up straighter under the demigod's palm, eyes shining.

"Her island was dying. So she set out to find me, the great demigod Maui, to plead for my help in restoring the Heart of Te Fiti." At this, Maui pauses to flex, to the appreciative oohs of the children and the audible exasperation of the woman at his side.

"Oh get on with it," the woman grins, and apparently without one whit of self-preservation, punches him in the shoulder.

Maui recoils, rubbing his shoulder and looking at her with a wounded expression on his face. Marama stops, and stares, and exchanges a disbelieving glance with his wife.

Did you see that? she mouths, and Marama shrugs incredulously.

But the demigod seems to take no offense to the woman's assault. Instead he eyes her with exasperation. "Curly, I can't tell this story if you keep interrupting me."

"You're not telling the story, you're showing off your muscles," she replies dryly.

"It's the same thing, Curly. My muscles are a very important part of this story."

"They are not."

"Are too!"

"And how much did your rippling muscles help you when you jumped into Lalotai, huh?"

"Might I remind you - "

"You went to Lalotai?" Hau pipes, all wide eyes and open mouth. "The Realm of Monsters?"

"The one and only, kiddo," Maui replies smoothly. "Me and Moana, we jumped right in. Because, well, on my island, I didn't have my hook. And of course I needed it back! So we had to go to Lalotai, because I knew which traitorous scumbag was hiding it."

"Who had it?" three voices ask curiously. Curly rolls her eyes tolerantly.

"A giant coconut crab," Maui says, bending over ominously to let his hair fall in front of his face. He spreads his arms, hooks the ends into claws. "A huge, huge crab, larger than this fale tele, larger than a mountain! He had mean little eyes and a shell tougher than stone and he hated me. For you see, thousands of years ago, I had ripped off his leg! And even now, to this day, he wants revenge. And he got it by stealing my hook from me!"

"He didn't steal it, Maui. He found it at the bottom of the ocean."

Maui sits up straight and pouts at her. "Curly, you're ruining the atmosphere."

"Okay, but Tamatoa wasn't that big - "

"He was huge! Did you forget about that?"

"No, I'm just saying that you might be overexaggerating - "

"Hush," he says, and with a gleam in his eyes claps a hand over the woman's mouth. Her eyes bug out in indignation. Then an idea dawns on her, and Maui recoils with a yelp.

"You bit me!" he squeals, nursing his hand against his chest.

The woman crosses her arms defiantly. "You stuck your hand over my mouth, what did you expect?"

"Curly, you bit me!"

"You're not appreciating my contributions to your story - "

Marama's eyes follow the volley with shock. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his neighbor's head physically turning to follow the quick banter. "Curly," the demigod says smoothly. "Curly. Dear Fishfeet, beloved Curly, could you maybe go find something else to do while I tell this story."

The woman frowns deeply at him, curling her eyebrows up in mock-pain. "Fine," she mutters, but can't seem to help the small smile burgeoning across her face. "I won't interrupt."

"Thank you," the demigod says, and if Marama thought he was shocked before it has nothing on the half-bow - however ironic it might be - that the demigod drops into.

The woman seems to have no idea that an immortal just bowed to her and, instead of returning the bow, laughs. "You're welcome!" she sing-songs.

For some reason, that earns her a heartfelt glare. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Maui continues, and grins at the eyeroll that the woman shoots him, even though she's leaning back out of his range of sight, "down in Lalotai was this huge coconut crab. Pincers twice the size of a man, claws sharp as razors. And atop his shell, among goblets and gold and boats, was my hook.

"I knew I couldn't beat the dumb crab without my hook," Maui explains, leaning forward again, clearly enjoying the enraptured expressions on the faces of the children. "So I sent Moana in as bait. And together, Moana and I beat the crab, got my hook back, and flipped him on his back. Then we left Lalotai on a huge geyser that propelled us right into the sky!"

A chorus of appreciative wows from the children follow Maui's proclamation. Marama's mostly preoccupied watching as the tolerant irritation on the woman's face softens to affection as she watches Maui gesture grandly, flapping his arms like he would wings.

"It took a little bit of work to get my hook working again. Y'know, a thousand years apart," he says, patting the handle of his hook fondly as it rests on his shoulder, "it can do bad things to a relationship. But with Moana's help, I managed to work things out between us.

"Now, let me tell you something else about Moana. She could be really annoying," the demigod whispers conspiratorially to the children, putting both hands around his mouth as if to block the words from the woman's ears. "She was two inches shorter than I was and she did not stop asking to be a wayfinder. Not once! Every day, when the sun was hottest in the sky, she would ask Maui, teach me to sail! or Maui, what does it mean when the current flows this way or Maui how do you tack without capsizing us - and let me tell you, it took her a long while to work out the answer to that last one," he winks. Thinking of the first time Marama himself had tried to tack, resulting in three capsizes in under an hour, wrestles a rueful snort from his throat.

"But after Lalotai, when she - well, she kinda saved my life. So I figured tit-for-tat, quid pro quo, I should at least teach her to sail."

Somehow, the smile on the woman's face gets softer, and her eyes drop as if in remembrance. At the sight a wild suspicion strikes Marama. He gives up watching the demigod and turns his attention to her instead.

"So I did! It took a couple of weeks, but eventually, I taught her how to be the second-best wayfinder in the world! In fact, she sailed us all the way to Te Fiti."

The little smirk that crosses Curly's face at the words second-best almost confirms Marama's guess. Winded in a way that has nothing to do with the mention of gods or even the immortal sitting in his fale tele, Marama's jaw cracks open.

"Remember Tamatoa?" he asks rhetorically, to the riveted assents of his eager audience. "Yeah, of course you do. Well, after Tamatoa, Moana and I went head-to-head with a giant lava monster. See this one?" he asks, and turns to point at the tattoo of a screaming giant wall of flame on his back. "Yeah. That was her. Te Ka, she was called," Maui says, and his voice drops a couple octaves to speak her name ominously. "A demon of earth and fire. When I stole the Heart of Te Fiti, she swore to get it back. She was willing to do anything to retrieve it - maim, injure, even kill."

Even though Marama has decades over the children that huddle closer together as Maui recounts his story, the demigod's skill with storytelling sends little frissons of fear even through him. The man paints entire worlds with his voice, words deep and rumbling, and Marama can see the blazing oranges and reds of the demon as though he had fought Te Ka himself.

But Marama keeps his eyes fixed on the young woman as Maui launches into the final part of his tale. Although it is a story that, by all rights, should terrify any mortal, the woman does not seem afraid. She watches Maui, as does the rest of the fale tele, and tracks his large movements and gregarious words with a quiet fondness in her eyes. Even as Maui recounts how Moana made it past Te Ka on her own, meeting up with him on the other side of the barrier islands, Curly makes no sign of surprise, despite the awed gasps that rise from his collected audience.

(The demigod spends a significant amount of time describing Moana's newfound prowess with voyaging. Were he not quite so attentive, Marama might wonder why the pride in the demigod's voice makes the young woman's face crinkle with affection.)

Friends can be found in the darkest of times, their storyteller explains. Even in darkness there is light. So Maui continues the tale of Moana, how she sung the great lava demon back to the goddess of Life; how her words soothed the wrath of Te Ka and restored life to the entire world. And when he finishes his tale, he lifts his necklace to show off his tattoo of their adventure.

It is not of the Heart, nor of Te Ka, not even his hook. Instead, proudly displayed on Maui's chest - right over his heart, Marama notes with interest - is a tattoo of a happily-waving, curly-haired voyager.

A quick glance around the fale tele shows Marama that he is alone in his suspicions. All eyes save his are trained on the demigod, with little heed paid to the young woman at his side.

Marama sits back. It makes sense, now, how comfortable the young woman had been when she first set foot on their island. The way she slipped easily in stride with a demigod. The way she responded to Kaheru as a Chief would, with a nod instead of a bow.

Marama doubts that the demigod realizes that he has not called Curly by her true name. Similarly, he is sure Moana herself has noticed and chosen to say nothing.

He watches her with renewed appreciation, that light still sparkling in her eyes as she watches Maui conclude his - their - tale with an ostentatious flourish. Though she can be no more than twenty years of age, she has the bearing of a Chief.

More than that. She has the bearing of a Voyager. She carries herself like a woman who has seen all there is to know of the world and knows her place in it.

The ocean's Chosen, on Marama's own shores. He huffs a quiet laugh, drawing the confused attention of his wife. Well, if Moana's not going to introduce herself, if she's not going to call upon her fair share of the attention, then Marama might just have to do it for her.

He pushes himself to his feet, suddenly feeling several decades younger and mischievous. "Demigod Maui," he says formally, plucking his way through the small throng of children to greet the duo. They blink at him, then stand in one fluid movement that looks uncanny on two separate bodies. "We thank you for your service to our people."

"It was no problem, really," he says effusively, still beaming from the warm reaction of his audience. "And besides, I really couldn't have done it without Moana."

A small gasp from behind him lets him know that his wife has finally made the same connection he has. But Marama indulges his small flair for the dramatic and, with a bow just slightly lower than the one to which he had treated Maui, bows in Moana's direction.

"Chief Moana," he says, never mind that she's probably not formally Chief just yet, "we extend our gratitude to you as well."

There's a long moment of silence. He hears someone whisper Moana? in the background, awe audible in their voice. The woman herself looks at him with resignation and amusement warring on her face.

A handful of heartbeats pass before chaos erupts around him.

Weariness presses in on Tui's forehead as he stumbles from the fale tele. He's older than he looks and at this point keeps the title of Chief as merely that - a title. It is justified, then, that he would seek Moana to solve Ahorangi's problem of sailing, since soon it will be her job regardless.

He tries very pointedly not to think of how little he wants to lead and how much he just wants to go to sleep.

It's with little surprise that Tui discovers no sign of Moana in her fale. It's with even less that he sees the faintest smudge of footprints heading down toward the shore. Straightening his back and rubbing exhaustion from his eyes, Tui strides down the path toward the beach.

As he steps through the forests, minding the overhanging branches, he can hear the sound of the waves rolling up from the sea. In the dead of night, the waves make the only noise in the villages; the animals and the wind itself sleeps with the moon.

His feet carry him unconsciously toward the rock upon which his mother had taught Moana so many of their stories. It is not uncommon to find Moana seeking solace there. Typically, when she finds refuge upon the shore he does his best not to bother her; but the issue brought to him by Ahorangi was one of voyaging, which is Moana's area of expertise.

Again, he pointedly does not reflect on the weariness of his eyes. Which feels a bit like the sand that squeezes between his toes has been rubbed into his eyes.

Another fifty steps carries him to the edge of the treeline, the humming of the ocean sounding in his ears all the while. But on the fifty-first, that nearly carries him onto the shore, he catches the muted sound of voices.

Tui squints through the darkness toward the sound, and sees his daughter and the demigod curled up on the shore, shoulders pressed against one another. Moana has one hand lifted toward the sky. The shape of her arm glimmers with moonlight, and the stars catch their hair against the sand, wreathing it in silver.

Stargazing, then.

Tui chuckles to himself, feels fondness turning his rueful grin softer. Why, he asks himself, why is he not surprised.

His daughter's laughter peals out over the ocean, accompanied shortly by the demigod's lower-pitched rumble. He lifts an arm to match hers and she whacks it down with abandon, some chastisement or another springing easily to her lips. It is a conversation that Tui has witnessed hundreds of times before, an easy banter that seems as natural to his daughter as breathing.

Surely, Tui knows enough of the sea to help Ahorangi.

With one last glance toward the waves, Tui slips back into the forest toward Motunui, leaving his daughter and her demigod to rest, side-by-side, on the shore.