Prompt: Can you write a thing from right after Maui leaves, and he talks to Mini Maui and decides to come back?
All right, here you go! One order of angst, as requested.
Maui's flight from Te Fiti is silent.
He's not sure why that bothers him. It's been a thousand years since he's interacted with another soul, it's not like this is a change. It's definitely Mini-Maui, Maui decides. Mini-Maui and nothing else. Just that the tiny tattoo hasn't said so much as a word for the past two hours, and honestly, Maui's kinda worried that he's fallen off the tapestry or something. Thing is, he's got no spread of tattoos and no way for him to check up on the little guy when he's more feathers than skin.
With a reluctant sigh, Maui begins to skim the horizon for islands. He's got all the time in the world to check up on his little buddy but for some reason his eyes flit from side to side with panic like he has somewhere to be like he has someone to save -
Maui quashes that thought firmly, the uncomfortable roiling feeling of anger returning to the pit of his stomach. No. No, he's left that stupid journey and the stupid mortal girl behind on her boat in the middle of the ocean too wide for her to cross alone -
Maui lets out an audible groan of frustration, pushing himself up further into the clouds. "Knock it off," he mutters to himself. "She'll be fine. She'll go home and keep on kissing babies or something."
He wishes he could believe it.
But that doesn't solve the problem of his stubborn mute tattoo, so Maui spirals downward toward a flash of green over the horizon. It's freeing, in a way, to have the updrafts under his wings once more. Moana was like a chain, he thinks vindictively. He always had to stay on her boat and guide her through the very basics of wayfinding, trying to make her into something she could never be. Honestly? He's better off without her.
Holding onto that thought, Maui hits the ground with two feet on the sand. "All right," he starts, already feeling a headache coming on, "what is your problem?"
Mini-Maui just crosses his arms and stares.
"Look, I didn't have to stop for you to sort out your feelings," Maui points out sensibly. "So just spit out whatever you want to say and then we'll be on our merry way."
No movement. Just a defiant stare full of stubbornness and, if he looks carefully, a bit of disappointment.
Oh, so now Moana's turned his little tattoo against him, too. Is there anything that girl hasn't ruined? His hook, and now Mini-Maui?
"Spit it out, Tiny."
Mini-Maui glares at him angrily, the first visible reaction since the beginning of this whole conversation. "There we go, now he's back," Maui rolls his eyes.
That earns him a punch right in the chest. Much as Maui complains about his tiny tattoo-self he has to admit that the little guy's left hook is pretty damaging.
When he finishes rolling his eyes, there's a canoe on his chest.
And Maui's not sure why, exactly, that suddenly makes it so hard to breathe. Because it's just sitting there, motionless in the water. The ocean around it makes no movement, there's no breeze filling its sails; just the lifeless wood and the emblem of the Heart dead in the wind.
Maui opens his mouth to say something scathing, probably a couple witty quips in there for good measure, until a mini Kakamora appears on his chest, a harpoon flying over its head.
"Cute," he manages dryly.
Mini-Maui's nowhere to be found, but Maui can just tell the little nuisance is behind this. "I don't know where you're going with this," he growls, "and I don't care."
The vision shifts, and the giant crab on his back appears on his chest, and Mini-Maui is lying on the ground. For all the world, his tiny self appears to be dead, or at least unconscious, and Maui thinks it would make a much better rendition if Mini-Maui didn't have his tongue sticking out.
Then the small Tamatoa picks up the tiny Maui and slams him against tattoo-border that separates Maui's chest from his shoulder, and Maui winces in sympathetic pain before he realizes what's happening. Then toward his collarbone, and Maui can see his own little mouth opening. And again and again and again -
"Okay," Maui finally snaps, because this is far too close to memory for his own comfort. "What's your point?"
At his words, some unseen force still the crab's hands. The Heart of Te Fiti appears, hovers over the small Tamatoa, then leads the giant crab away from Maui, who still appears senseless on the floor.
Then the Heart reappears, no longer pursued by Tamatoa, and hovers gently over Mini-Maui for a moment. It pulses once, quietly, and Mini-Maui sits up.
"I'm not going back," Maui snaps. "I'm not! I'm better off without her."
Mini-Maui crosses his arms and glares at Maui.
"She destroyed my hook," Maui hisses, like his little tattoo needs reminding. It sparks in agreement at his side, filling the nighttime sky with sickly purple light. "She almost got us killed by Te Ka, and might I remind you who had to save her from the lava demon? Me! I could've just ran and I didn't, I saved her, and she - it's because of her that my hook is cracked!"
There's a long, long moment of uncomfortable silence, during which Maui notices abruptly that he's panting angrily. He hisses at himself in ill-constrained fury and turns away.
His little tattoo has more to say, he knows it. But if Maui crosses his arms over his chest and ignores him then he won't have to listen.
Mini-Maui prods him in the shoulder. Maui crosses his arms tighter and stares out at the horizon.
Horizon, his traitor mind thinks, you taught her how to cross the horizon.
Angrily, Maui turns his gaze toward the sand. She is done. Her quest is over. Moana failed. She can go home and brag about how she met and let down the greatest demigod of her people, and maybe a hundred years later after she's dead and gone Maui will flap on over to her island just to see what became of her.
If he even finds her island, he realizes. Without the Heart, her island will crumble, just as have dozens of islands that he and Moana passed during their journey to Te Fiti.
Mini-Maui's next punch takes him by surprise. Like his little tattoo is demanding his attention. "What?" he snaps.
But Mini-Maui's gone by the time Maui looks down. Instead, in his place hover two emblems. One, his hook - and the other, the Heart of Te Fiti.
"Oh that's just what I needed," he hisses. "A reminder that even though I gave up my hook on this stupid mission I still didn't restore the heart. Thanks, little buddy," he spits, "you're really making me feel better."
Mini-Maui doesn't reappear. Instead, the two symbols start to float up and down, almost a bobbing motion, one raising higher than the other before floating back down beneath. When Maui studies it, he notices a crack running down his hook.
A scale.
"My hook," he answers, because duh. For thousands of years, that's all he's been thinking about. His hook and his legacy. There's no way he'd choose his hook over some Heart and some girl. "Make that - make the hook float a bit higher. That's my choice."
The hook falls on his chest, then shimmers for a couple of seconds before the boat reappears again.
And just like the first time, the sight of it knocks the wind out of him, like someone had taken a oar to his stomach. For a couple of seconds, Maui just gapes, then shakes his head. "What have I told you, I'm not -"
The Heart.
The Heart of Te Fiti, he realizes, watching it waver into existence over that lone boat.
Moana still has it.
And that realization, it is that realization that makes him physically gasp, because of course. He'd dropped it, hadn't he? On the deck?
(Of course he had. He does not think he will ever be able to forget those few minutes aboard their boat spitting so you can prove you're something you're not -)
And if Moana has the Heart, he realizes with another blow to the stomach that feels like revulsion and anger and disgust and guilt all in one tight ball, one that scorches him hotter than the fires of Te Ka could ever hope to burn, then she will set sail for Te Fiti with or without him.
"I'm not going back," he says in an automatic denial, but it is weak even to his own ears.
And there is Mini-Maui again. There is nothing of judgment in his face, not any more - just understanding and maybe a little bit of sympathy. Maui kinda expects him to show Tamatoa once more, remind him of the time he spent beaten and broken at Tamatoa's claws until Moana saved him or on the beach with the head of a shark despairing until Moana pulled him up once more, said it is not the Gods who make you Maui -
it is not your hook that makes you Maui -
Mini-Maui wraps him in a hug, tentatively, and Maui can't return it. Can't move his fingers at all.
When Mini-Maui pulls away, there's that choice on his chest. Right over his heart. The hook or the Heart, and Maui knows, he knows that it is not the Heart he will lose if he does not return.
It is not the Heart of Te Fiti he would lose should he choose to stay, he thinks, panic bringing sentiment to the forefront of his mind.
"Moana," he says, out toward the water over the horizon. He looks down, eyes wide, toward his tattoo. "She has the Heart."
Mini-Maui nods, once. Slowly and solemnly. Then he pulls his own small hook, broken and battered, from behind his back, and plucks the Heart from the sky. He lets his tiny hook fall to his feet and draws the Heart of Te Fiti close to his chest.
It is not the Heart of Te Fiti that he would lose. It is his own.
Moana never left him. Not when he tried to abandon her to the Kakamora, not when he left her defenseless in Lalotai, not when he was broken and beaten by a crab dozens of times his size. Not even, not even when he had given up on himself.
Without thinking through the motion, Maui stands. Hefts his hook. Looks to the sky. It is dark, the skies dimmed with the first rays of sunlight rising over the horizon. He cannot see over the waves and he cannot see through the skies but if he raises his hand and tilts it just right, he can see his path to Te Fiti.
There is no time to waste. No battle cry leaves his lips as he shifts effortlessly into the body of a hawk, leaping up toward the winds. There is no relaxed joy in his movements now, only a budding panic that pushes him faster and faster.
To the island of Te Fiti he sets his sights, and he knows the way.