Within minutes, they've arrived in the islands that clearly was covered with a thick layer of dust. After seizing her surrounding, Moana found what the culprit was. Towering over a few villages below, the volcanic mountain was fuming dangerously and ready to pour its anger, searing anything in its way. Moana could feel the slight humming tremor under her feet, which confirmed her suspicion.

"The volcano," Moana pointed out, Maui nodded in agreement.

"Mo, you go ahead and help the villagers to evacuate, I'm going to secure some large stones to avoid the landslide and the lava from flooding the village," he informed her decisively, wielding his Fish Hook while his eyes were busy calculating his next move. Moana hummed her approval and turned towards the village before a thought of apprehension landed on her mind.

"Maui!" she called, causing the Demigod to lower his Fish Hook.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you will be…-" Moana's line of unwarranted worry was silenced by a large finger that hovered right in front of her lips. Maui chuckled and shook his head in amusement, but he was obviously elated that Moana spared some serious thought over his safety.

"Relax!" He drawled coolly, placing his oversized palm over her shoulder. "You forget that handling formidable danger comes with territory, Curly." Maui leered over her and flexed his rippling biceps, causing the sea of tattoos scaling his arms to dance in harmony. "Otherwise….I won't be this old! Yes?" he added. "But!" he revised, "...still undeniably attractive," he closed his line with a suggestive whisper, waggling his bushy brows.

A few years ago, Moana would feed him her fist or smack him square in the face with her oar over his blatant, flirtatious maneuver. But things had changed since. She had changed, he had changed, and so was the connection between them.

"I'll be back," he said, smiling smugly before morphing into an Eagle and soaring into the bright sky.

But it was all a lie.

Because she had waited...

Moana waited until the sky grew dark, until the moon rose and set, until the morning came, he didn't come back.

When an entourage of Wayfinders was sent to check for the damage, they returned to Motunui with Maui. Moana was almost relieved. Almost. Until she saw the condition he was in.

"I think he suffered a concussion," one of the men explained. "We found him unconscious by the foot of the mountain. But, I believe he is still breathing."

Those men helped to shift Maui into a room and carefully placed him on a bed. Then the healer came to inspect him and give his verdict. When the healer's brows slanted despairingly, and he shook his head in remorse, it was then Moana fell into inconsolable tears, taking her heart out between the wall of her rooms.

But she refused to be defeated. After her tears run dry, with rebounding courage and solid determination, she vowed to find and do anything that would bring Maui back to her.

She tried everything: calling more healers, consulting soothsayers, sending numerous prayers and presenting offerings to the gods in the hope to gain their favor - but nothing seemed to work.

Nothing.


A year later.

The sun had crept towards the border of the horizon, painting the sky above with a brilliant hue of red and orange.

Moana sat by the edge of the shore, drawing long breaths, appreciating the magnificence of what Mother Nature had created before her. She took a moment of peace, focusing on the raw element of nature around her, noting the sound of the crashing wave, the scent of salty sea mixed with the sweet scent of jasmine, feeling the warm swirling breeze of the ocean on her face while keeping her eyes tightly shut. And then, a reminiscence of happier time that she had completely buried made its way to her full attention.

"Mo...can I ask you something?" she remembered him asking as she took out the food from her sack that she had packed for their lunch earlier.

"What is it?"

"You know that… we've been...we've been together for a while now. And I think, it's time for a change."

"A change?" Her curiosity grew. Moana abandoned her food only to realize that Maui had not touched his, and this was so unlike him!

"Yes," came his shaky reply.

Moana hummed thoughtfully, making Maui feel even more scrutinized. "Like what kind of change?"

Maui suddenly felt his courage shrunk and he began rethinking his decision. Moana's eyes narrowed suspiciously observing Maui's untypical apprehension.

After a beat and an expectant look from Moana, Maui let out a deep sigh and answered in as roundabout a way he could, "Like, y'know...egg hatched into a chick… and a chick grew up into a hen, and the hen..-"

"Maui!" she admonished Maui's vague illustration.

If the villagers were there to witness their exchange, they would be floored. Maui was about 350 pounds menacing looking man, with large muscle and his baritone could shake the walls. Yet, a dainty maiden with an oar put him in his place with a single word.

"Speak in plain language. Please! Metaphorical allegory doesn't agree with me."

"Ugh, ok. I mean… a change, in our… relationship," he said, still with slight reticence, however, managed to emphasize the last word to the letter.

"Ok, so you're saying… you want our relationship to...change…-?" Moana regarded him with a quirk of her brows.

"Yes, changed and…. Uhmm...moving," he stuttered. "Moving forward," he added, which only mounting to the ambiguity of his statement.

Moana mentally facepalmed herself. There was a time like this where she felt the gods purposely put her on trial against Maui's childishness. But despite her thinning patience, she tried to appear supportive and sympathetic. Called this a test of love.

"I am with you," Moana nodded, even though she wasn't even sure where the conversation was heading. "So… what do want me to do to make this relationship moving forward?"

"Mo, do you believe me?" Maui prompted after another beat of silence.

Moana folded her arms across her chest. "Well, now you're being purposely obtuse," she breathed with a dose of annoyance. "Is there something I need to know? Can't you just say it?"

Marshaling his courage, Maui finally set his resolve,"Ok, ok… just close your eyes."

Moana huffed loudly but complied nonetheless. He curved her right hand around his wrist and shakily slid a ring onto her finger.

"You can open your eyes now."

When Moana's eyes widened with apparent awareness of what this may have implied, Maui felt himself cringing preemptively at whatever she had realized.

"Your Mom helped me pick it out," he said still in a nervous voice as she admired it. Moana could see her mother's gentle, effeminate influence in a modest but elegant twist of jade.

"Maui... it's, it's beautiful!" she smiled genuinely before rewarding him with a chaste kiss on his cheek."Thank you."

"Your...your welcome," Maui blushed, adorably awkward, as though the whole universe were watching them.

It was a particularly poignant gesture from his part, especially when Moana reminisced the Demigod had never been too shy to verbalize his love for her. He was always quite explicit in his show of affection. Thus, to watch him flinched and squirmed in trepidation could feel peculiarly heartwarming. Somewhere between the lines she could read that he had taken his proposal seriously and perhaps, had spent a considerable amount of time picturing of their future together.

"Since when you go all shy and tongue-tied, huh?" she grinned at him.

"Since I meet you, I guess." He equated her smile, but Moana still could see an imperceptible sense of insecurity lurking underneath.

"Maui, what it is?" she urged him. After knowing Moana for a good part of her adult life, Maui could only be sure, the stubborn girl wouldn't give up her fight once she had set her heart to dig the truth out of him.

"Mo, I know I don't have much to offer to you. I don't have land...riches...Hell, I don't even have a home! I know I don't deserve to be the man that you loved, but with this ring, may I have the honor of having you as my…-"

"Maui…." she silenced him with her finger on his lips. "You don't have to ask me. I am sure you know the answer. I don't wish to marry land, buildings, jewelry….I wish to marry you."

"Well, I just want to make sure," he scratched the side of his head that wasn't itchy. "May I…-?" He insinuated shyly with his eyes, and she answered him with a positive smile.

Discerning that Moana had given him permission to do so, he gathered his courage to frame her face.

The word of consent melt between their lips, letting passion and love be trapped between their tongues, like a gap of unfilled words that were far too raw and embarrassing to be spoken, yet could not be denied. As both of them ended the earnest battle, they slowly parted, eyes fluttering open, gazing into each other contentedly.

"Where have you been, all my life?" she asked as she went pliant in his arms.

His warm eyes never faltered staring at the form in front of him with great adoration. Then all the doubt flew from him, all the insecurity, the guesswork. Moana might never say it out loud, but she was here. She wanted to be with him, as far as she could tell….she wanted to be with him forever.

Maui smiled."I am always here…. waiting for you."

By then, she knew that the crazy, utterly vain Demigod had ensnared her heart, together with every fiber of her being. She loved him with earnestness, with power that even she couldn't fully comprehend. He gazed up at him with the look of undying affection. She had declared herself madly in love with this man, and all it had taken was one stupid accident that had turned her life around.

In just a moment, one kiss, one ring…. had changed everything….

Moana broke of her trance trembling, her idle hand grasped the ring unconsciously, fingers riddling the Fish Hook pattern weaved on its surface. The tingling sensation from the vivid recollection of him still lingered on her lips. It felt so real, and she silently wished it hadn't been because it made her to miss him more.

However, one year was a long time for a mortal, more so for an unmarried woman of her age. One by one, her peers overtook her: courted, betrothed, tied the knot and procreated. Tui and Sina had cajoled their daughter to move on: to accept his absence and to forget the trace of his love that seemed to be permanently tattooed on her heart. They wished her memory of him would fade away just like his presence did.

But, sometimes when you love someone, it became impossible to look at things with the spectacle of rationality, even the most regular ones.

It hurt. Yes, of course. It hurt her to see him ended like this.

Moana tried to ignore the feeling, shoved it off to the back of her mind, telling herself that eventually, everything would be fine - Maui was a Demigod, a superhero, an immortal creature after all. She tried hard to tire herself to sleep, numbing all her sadness and hoping her dream would be better than reality.

But even when she closed her eyes, the generous smile on his face and the sincere passion that was illuminating his eyes - still imprinted vividly in her mind. She could cover her ears, but the soothing timbre of his voice and the boisterous sound of his laughter would still echo persistently like the melody of crashing wave reaching the shore. She could hide herself under sheets of blankets and still felt his warm touch lingering in every inch of her. She wanted to lock her memories away. No, she didn't want to discard their adventures, nor did she wanted to forget. She simply wished to lock them away until she was ready to remember.

She wept, not physically and not with tears… She wept in her heart, pleading earnestly with gods who hold the power of the universe, to return him to the place he supposed to be - right here with her, and that their destiny to together don't end here.


First of all, pardon my laziness for using a ring here. As my research suggested, ring and marriage proposal wasn't done this way in ancient Polynesian. I was using them just so that it's easier for us to relate, and easier for me to write. Ha! :-)

To those of you that hasn't work out this yet, Maui had fallen into a coma. Oh yes, don't know why I love angst so much?