Relationships: Moana & Original Characters, Moana & Tala, slight touches of one-sided Moana/Original Character
Chapter summary: Fa'anui isn't completely independent just yet, and it's up to Moana to get supplies for the upcoming stormy weather. But Motunui is under new management now, and this negotiation may not be as easy as she'd thought.

Notes: Oh, hey, the first chapter in this series with no Maui in it. He'll be back next chapter, but for now, here's Moana handling stuff on her own.

Gramma Tala always blamed Moana's stubborn streak on the chiefly side of the family. Ever since Moana could remember, Gramma would be the only person brave or crazy enough to get in the middle of one of their arguments and shout everyone down for their foolishness before silent treatments happened, family bonds inevitably broke forever, and the workings of the village ground to a halt. The chiefly side was the fighty side, and though the village crazy lady could use her family's orator skills to calm everyone down, even the village crazy lady had her limits.

"That's how that whole clan became chiefs, I think," she would mutter as she wound down by braiding Moana's hair. "Probably just decided they were and wouldn't let up until everyone agreed. Stubborn, prideful little children, the lot of them."

The hair would always tug a little more by this part of the rant.

"You promise me, Moana, when I'm gone, you keep that family talking to each other," she'd say. "That mother of yours knows how to deal with people. I can only hope you got some of her common sense."

"It hurts, Gramma," Moana would whine. "You're pulling too tight."

"I'm pulling so that you remember."

More tugs, more braids, and Moana would always sit there silently wishing that, if anything, she just inherited less hair. "I'll remember, Gramma."

"Oh, will you now?"

Moana would roll her eyes. Gramma couldn't see her. Moana could get away with that. "I'm too stubborn to forget something like that."

And Gramma Tala would laugh, and the tugging would grow a little more gentle. Still firm, just no longer angry. "Yes," she'd say. "You are. And you better watch that. There's too much of your father in you."

"Yes, Gramma."

"And don't roll your eyes at me. Gramma sees everything."

"No, Gramma."

How did she always know?

During one of the post-fight braiding sessions, in a clearing overlooking the sea, Gramma chuckled as she began to insert tiare blossoms into the braids.

"It's not always that bad, you know, the stubbornness. Sometimes that family can use it for good," she said, a fondness in her voice as the stalks gently pushed in between the tight bundles of hair and the air filled with the sweet scent of tiare in bloom. "Did I ever tell you how your grandfather and I got married?"

Moana had gasped at that, wrenching her attention away from the call of the sea for once to focus on her grandmother's story. "No!" she said. "What happened? Was it romantic? Did you two cause some trouble?"

"Oh, that probably goes without saying," she said, and tapped at Moana's shoulder to tell her to turn around. "I'll tell you, but you promise me," she said, "you keep this family talking to each other after I die."

Moana whirled around to face her, the sea breeze cooling her from behind. "You're not gonna die, Gramma."

"Promise me, Moana."

Moana sighed. "Okay, I promise," she said. "Now tell me the story."

Gramma pretended to frown, pretended to consider it, before she leaned in, grinning. "Well, it's a story of chiefly stubbornness and orator peacekeeping … "

You would think Moana's blood had come close to boiling that time she squared off against, you know, an actual lava monster.

You'd probably be wrong.

Moana doesn't glare, she's in no position to.

But there's nothing stopping her from a good, withering glower.

Look at him, sitting there all smug with his stupid chiefly headdress and his stupid whale tooth necklace and his stupid council in this stupid council fale. That used to be her family's council fale. Whatever, he probably found a way to make it worse somehow. Decorate it wrong or something. What in the world made her dad think her cousin Selia of all people would make a good chief to replace him once they left Motunui?

And what made him think Moana could handle this trade negotiation alone, surrounded by almost nothing but this side of the family?

She takes a silent, calming breath.

"Please, Selia," she says, again, "we're not asking for a handout. We're not. I had to fight the council for permission to even be able to come here and ask for a trade. But cyclone season is in a few months and we just don't have enough tapa to replace all the—"

"You've said."

It physically hurts to restrain her balk of indignation. "Cuz—"

"Moana," he says, straightening up like his greater size and height would stand the slightest chance of intimidating someone who fought a lava monster, like their age difference would actually mean anything to her now, "I understand. I do. We all do."

He gestures at his council around them, who nod and mumble in agreement, mostly his relatives, mostly older generation folks who recoiled at the idea of voyaging.

Selia continues. "But you said so yourself," he says. "Cyclone season is coming. And your people took half of my workforce."

"Our people," she says. "They never stopped being your people, and you are welcome to visit any time you want. Selia, we all grew up together, worked together, we share everything we make—"

"We did," he says. "Until they left."

How could he even say that?

Selia closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them he's calmer but no less stubborn. "Moana, Motunui lost some of its best weavers, fishers, and builders when you left to start a new village," he says. "You don't think we're adjusting, too? Let me repeat again, we lost nearly half our population when you left last year—half—and a lot of the people left are the people who were too old, too young, too pregnant, or too scared to make the journey. In the year since I took my title I've been working to just keep everything going. We just don't have the extra to give."

"But you do have enough extra to trade."

He shuts his big stupid mouth.

"First navigator in a thousand years, remember? What, I wouldn't have seen a few traders near here? I wouldn't notice their tapa had designs from Motunui?" she says, and now it's her turn to straighten up. "Mulberry and breadfruit trees take years to grow, cousin, and our trees just aren't ready to make tapa yet."

"And my people can barely make anything else."

And she shuts her big stupid mouth.

"Moana, people want tapa," he says. "We can make that. And trade helps us get the things we need that we're having a hard time making now. We have none to just give away."

"I never said give away! And it's not like I forced them to come!" she says. "You don't think we're also having a hard time with half the people we used to have? We've spent this whole time building a village from scratch. We're tired. And our farms and plantations are just getting started. I wouldn't have come if there were other ways to get the materials."

She sighs.

"Look, we don't have much to trade with right now but I brought obsidian," she says. "Our pearls are beautiful, you wouldn't believe the colour and—"

"Cyclone season is coming, Moana," he says, slower this time, like she's three years old. "People need clothes and mosquito curtains. This is not the time to peddle axes and jewellery. None of our partners will ask for that when they can get tapa."

"Fine mats, then" she blurts. Everyone loves fine mats. "We're not done yet but if you give us a few weeks—"

He holds up a hand, sighing, and does a little glower of his own. "Maybe you could try calling in a favour from your god friends, ask them to grow you some trees or whatever perks you get from your special relationship," he says, quirking an eyebrow, "Chosen One."

And Moana's pretty sure she does feel the prickle and bubbling of her blood actually beginning to boil.

"Thought I'd find you here," a hesitant voice calls from behind her.

Moana hurls one more broken-off piece of stick into the sand. "Hey, Lolo."

Her cousin tucks a nonexistent lock of hair behind her ear, and slowly takes a seat on the same bent coconut tree, putting on a familiar nervous smile.

"So I hear your meeting with my brother didn't go too well."

Moana snaps a couple more branches, really feeling that sharp crack and splinter.

"No it did not."

Lolo lets her feet sway a little, her toes brushing up against the sand.

"Why'd they they send you alone, anyway?" she says. "You know Selia would agree to anything if your dad asked."

Moana shrugs. "Something about learning to handle these things on my own? Diplomacy?" she says. "Chief training. I don't know."

"That Cousin Tui," she says, shaking her head. "My mom said he started your training before you could even talk, bring you around the village to watch him handle things."

Another broken-off piece of stick flies right into the sand. "Yeah, and you'd think that would make me better at this," Moana says. "Can't even convince our closest neighbour to trade anything before the rains come and the mosquitos start multiplying."

"Rainy season that bad over there, huh?"

"More like rainy season that wet," she says, and hurls one final piece of stick into the sand. Her fingers grip along the coconut tree, a fingernail or two tracing the edges of bark. "We finished building everything by the time last year's cyclone season came around. Maui visiting helped speed things up," she says. "Some of our tapa just got too damaged by the storms, and the end of last rainy season saw a lot of mosquitos."

Lolo's smile gives way to worry. "Did anyone—?"

"No," Moana sighs. "Thank the gods. But every time I saw someone covered in bites I'd panic a little. I've had those fevers, cuz. You never know when it's something to worry about."

Lolo nods. She'd had them, too. It was never pleasant for anyone.

Moana's fingers trace along the nearest edges of the coconut bark. "Teiki—"

"Oh no! The little dancer? Pepeu's boy?"

"He came down with … something," Moana says. "One of the healers said it was from the damp. It wasn't one of the fevers but it was bad. And I got scared. Our first year and we almost lost one of your youngest voyagers."

She swallows, and her hand sparks in mild pain as she grips the bark tighter. "I won't let the rains or the tradewinds take anyone this year."

"So what'll you do?" Lolo says. "My brother won't budge on this."

"If Motunui won't trade with us, I'll try further west," Moana says. "Selia says otherwise but I know some of the old trading partners probably won't mind a little more obsidian for a little less tapa. There's this one I know who'll trade all sorts of things if it means he can work on his inventions, and there's a diver near there who'd kill for better pearls."

Lolo frowns. "And Motunui?" she says. "This isn't going to change things, is it?"

Yes, what about Motunui, her former home, her village's nearest ally? What would happen now that they don't seem to want anything to trade and their new chief seems to hold a grudge against her for charming the gods and taking away his people?

Moana means it when she shakes her head and replies, "I don't know."

Trust her to stew about her cousin's decision until the morning tide begins to go out. Moana is this close to kicking herself for letting this drag on for so long when the glare of the coming noon sun begins to break up with the shadows of returning boats.

Moana shields her eyes for a better look and sighs, falling back in relief against her hull as women in the distance make their way, baskets in tow, to the beach.

The fishermen. They must've started the day's fishing somewhere else and then decided to end here.

Her sail might still be furled at the moment but the fishermen know the boat all too well, and they're all hooting and cheering and calling out Moana's name as they come closer to the beach. She sighs, and her smile goes from polite to genuinely excited as their faces come into view. She can't believe it.

It had barely been a year, how had they all changed so much, and yet not at all? Since when was Teva that tall, or Ufie that broad? How did Manu in his older age manage to snag the biggest bonito? Moana sweeps them all into hugs and hongi as soon as they and their boats are safely on shore, and it's not long before they're launching into the usual little quips.

"Look at you, still so short!"

"You been getting enough sleep, Moana?"

"Guys, guys, look, she has a new tattoo!"

"So much blackwork, how did you not pass out?"

"Why are you here and not fighting off an army of suitors, eh?"

She's blushing, and they're blushing, and it's just good to see them all again, them and all the others who've just arrived at the beaches to pick up the day's catches. The drudgery of the morning's catches becomes a joyous little reunion, and by the end of it she smells of fish and sweat and doesn't care one bit about it.

"We'll distribute the catches and then we're off to wash and get our share," Lasalo the head fisherman beams, hefting a net of catches out from his boat to tip into the baskets as Moana tries not to stare too hard at the flex in his arms. "Come join us at the meal," he says. "I'm sure the boys would wanna catch up."

Quickly followed by the crowd of fishermen agreeing loudly and another round of playful shoving.

She considers her boat again, looks out at the receding waters, and shrugs. It'd be hard to leave now even if she wanted to, and besides, who turns down food?

"Sure," she says. "I'm starving."

And the beach erupts into cheers.

Teva almost chokes on his share of the fish.

"Selia at least gave you a bit of a feed after the welcome, though?"

Moana shrugs again. "Sure, just sort of a regular meal, nothing special," she says. "I was glad to have anything after all the sailing it took to get here."

Teva sniffs. "Figures," he says, pushing away his share of the entrails from his leaf packet. "He never did like it when we brought you up. Said you guys were long gone so there's no use dwelling. I think he was jealous. But I didn't think he'd go that far, not even bother to throw you a feast. Bet you didn't even get a platter, had to eat off leaves or from a basket like the rest of us."

"Oh, I don't really need a—"

"Aw, come on, Moana!" Ufie says. "You're a chief now, aren't you? Visiting chiefs get feasts."

"And platters," Manu adds. "And bonito, not this common stuff."

She's blushing again as the fishermen mumble their agreements.

"Still a chief's daughter, unfortunately," she says. "Dad's not ready to retire just yet."

"But you found the island, you said," Lasalo pipes up, and takes another bite of baked fish. "And you planned the village."

"With the council approving every step," Moana says.

Lasalo swallows. "And now you're here," he says. "Handling chief business alone. I'd say that's pretty chiefly."

And she's grateful the tan from the voyage here is helping to hide any deepening redness.

Married life agrees with Lasalo, Moana notices, as he gets up to gather the leftovers and packets of banana leaf into a nearby basket. Handsome as ever and a little wider and darker besides. She is happy for him and his new little family, she is, though that doesn't stop the sarcastic little voice inside her quipping that Maui was right, and maybe she should've said something before he found someone else.

She frowns. Fisherman. The council would've never gone for it, not with voyaging back in their lives and foreign royalty back as an option.

"So what'd they send you here for, then?" Lasalo says, tossing a discarded leaf package into the basket. "You guys gathering supplies for the rainy—Oh!"

The contents of the basket spill out from a tear in the basket, and Lasalo sighs quietly before bending down to clean up the mess. "Useless thing," he says.

Moana sets aside her leaf packet and bats away his hand before he can object to her helping. "Looks like you'll be needing a new one."

Lasalo frowns. "That one was new."

"What?" Moana says.

Teva pipes up. "Your cousin's been having the village focus so much on tapa that we can't really do anything else," he sniffs, wrapping up the remains of his meal. "The weavers barely have time for what they're actually good at."

"Neither does anyone else," Ufie says, "now that the other villages are preparing to go east."

The joy at the news of everyone voyaging again—east! The direction of her new village! Word had spread!—is barely a spark of light inside her before she sees the droop in their shoulders and the dread in their eyes.

Oh.

Oh, what had she started.

And what kind of chief could she hope to be if these are the sorts of consequences of her leadership?

"The other villages are trading less," she says, "because they're all building boats and gathering supplies."

Lasalo nods, picking up the last of the spilt refuse. "Yeah," he says. "So now we're all working extra to trade what we can before they all launch in a couple years."

Moana swallows. "Motunui isn't in the market for some obsidian and pearls, is it?"

Lasalo shrugs. "Obsidian and pearls? Sure, we could do with more axes, and jewellery trades pretty well," he says. "Sails would be more useful, though."

"And nets," Ufie says, packing up his meal as well. "And rope."

Manu sniffs. "Ti and hibiscus skirts," he says, cleaning his hands on his frayed ti leaf skirt. "We keep running out."

"Or at least some more voyaging boats," Teva adds. "Be more useful to go over to them 'stead of waiting for them to come here half the time. We still remember your voyaging lessons, Moana. We'd be up for some trading."

The list of items keeps growing, further burying that small spark of joy Moana might've felt over the return of voyaging. These people—her people—needed basics, things that they all grew up taking for granted. And she'd not only made them harder to get, but started taking away the people who provided them in the first place. On purpose. It had been her goal since the beginning to influence other villages into voyaging.

It wasn't a mistake to start everyone voyaging again. It wasn't.

But she's going to have to make this transition easier on everyone, not just the people setting off to find new lands.

Moana gathers everything into the broken basket, despite Lasalo's objections about how he has it don't worry he can clean this, and makes sure to hold it by the bottom so that any spillage is at a minimum. She takes another look at the fishermen.

It had barely been a year, how had they all changed so much, and yet not at all? Since when was Teva that tired, or Ufie that stressed? How did Manu in his older age manage with that fraying old skirt for so long? Moana sweeps them all into hugs and hongi as soon as everyone is full and clean, and it's not long before she's going around the rest of the village catching up with everyone else.

She won't lose anyone here, either.

She leaves with the evening tide, the barest of niceties as she says goodbye to her cousins, Selia stoic and dignified in a way that seemed to follow everyone from the chiefly line of the family, Lolo as meek and gentle as anyone not from that line, and those from the other branches of the family too busy to come say goodbye. There's no ceremonial farewell, there isn't even a small gift of food to take for the journey; all she recalls is Selia excusing himself to deal with the latest little emergency, and Lolo telling her to come visit whenever she wants.

"This is still your home, these are still your people, and you are welcome any time," she insists, though at this point it's hard to believe, and Moana nods and grasps her into one final hug before she pushes off.

"Moana!" Teva calls from the shore, followed by a small group of the other fishermen running after him. "Moana, wait!"

The boat is just about to start floating when Moana decides to stop pushing it any further.

It's Lasalo wading out into the water, leading the way as he balances a small basket on his head. "Got you something for the trip."

Teva smirks. "Since our dear new chief thinks you're too good to need provisions."

She protests, but they insist, and she tries to pull rank and command them to take it home to their families, and they laugh like it's nothing less than yet another empty threat from the tiny little tagalong who'd hold no qualms about bugging them for a boat ride or a sailing lesson in front of her father.

"I got some fruit and bait, don't worry!"

Lasalo brushes it off. "Just take the basket before this one breaks, too."

So she does.

And it's filled with drinking nuts and little packets of fish, both cooked for tonight and dried for the journey, and on top, a small packet of prawns in coconut cream. Her favourite.

Lasalo's smile is a mix of emotions as he and the others gaze up at her from the shore. "Don't forget about us when you're chief, eh?" he says.

She shakes her head, and puts the basket safe in her hold. "Never."

It's not her cousin's attendants, or Moana herself, who give her boat that final push into the water. It's the fishermen.

The hook and spiral of her sail flap proudly in the late afternoon breeze as she sets off to the west.

"No!" Moana had said so long ago, eyes wide open as she leaned forward, hooked on every word out of her grandmother's mouth. "Grampa really did that?"

"He really did that," Gramma Tala said, a fond smile at the memory. "He just stuck his foot down, and said no, I'm marrying her, the hyperactive one from the orator family. He wouldn't listen to the council, wouldn't even eat until they agreed to at least consider it. Oh, I was so worried, and so angry at him! I thought my handsome young chief would waste away!"

Moana giggled, trying to even imagine what someone she guessed looked like her dad would look like all thin and hollow-cheeked.

"So I had to work quickly before he pulled another stunt," Gramma whispered. "I found out all the other women they had in mind instead for my darling, and then I found them all husbands they would like better."

"All of them?"

"All eight of them," she grinned. "Except the one who had her eye on a weaver. She got a nice lady instead."

Moana gasped. Gramma really did see everything, if she knew not only all the people the council approved of but also what they would like and who they would get along with.

"But what did the council say?" Moana said. "What about Grampa's family?"

Gramma laughed, just a small chuckle to herself. "You know what got them to come around?" she said. "We gathered them all up into the council fale, and your grandfather, he sat them all down and forced them to listen to him. He forced them to all talk."

Moana nodded.

"That's what works with that family, I think. Maybe with all chiefs," Gramma said. "When they're angry, if it's not war then it's all yelling and then walking away until someone's forced to apologise."

"That's what you do!"

"Yes, that's what I do!" Gramma laughed. "They'd never talk to each other if they weren't gathered round and forced to talk. And that's what you need to do when things get heated, Moana," she said. "You need to make them talk. Even if you don't want to talk. Walk away if you need to cool down, but you have to go back to them with a solution, because they sure won't make the first move."

Moana nodded.

"You promise me, Moana."

Moana barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Yes, Gramma," she said. "I'll keep this family talking to each other."

And at this Gramma Tala smiled, and gestured for Moana to help her up off her seat. "Good," she said. "Good."

Her boat is just that much lighter from the lack of rock and precious stones, but much more cramped for all her efforts. Though she'd be lying if she said it wasn't a relief to not have to constantly worry about accidentally slicing her leg open or losing an entire rope to the obsidian.

Still, she's proud all the same, chest puffed and chin tilted proudly upwards as she regards the piles of tapa bundled safely in her hold and up on her outrigger. It's not enough to replace all the clothes they'd lose—they'll have to make do with other materials for now—but enough to replace the mosquito curtains they'd lost during the last rainy season, with a few extra to spare. Some villages even gave her a few as a gift, a thank you for making the waters safe again and freeing Maui from his exile so he could, among other things, reintroduce wayfinding to the world.

And it may have been her natural draw towards people, or it may have been the years of Maui's corrupting influence on her curiosity, but she made it a point to spend every trip asking around the village to see how they were doing, and the stories didn't change that much.

The ones preparing to leave were anxious about making do while waiting for their crops to grow, the ones preparing to stay behind suddenly took a lot of interest in trade. Some people had too many red feathers to deal with now, others had too many sails, some people were at a loss about where to trade their whale teeth or bedrolls. Now that everyone was planning to leave, the islands had to talk to each other now to survive, no more isolation.

And no more trade without a real system in place.

She takes a steadying breath at the sight of Motunui's leeward side on the horizon, and lets her fingers curl around her abalone pendant.

She's going to keep this family talking to each other. She's going to get all these islands talking to each other.

She just hopes her cousin goes along with this.

It's hard to even remember what she was so frustrated about with Selia's eldest sitting beside him, her huge brown eyes blinking up at her in the sort of fascination only toddlers seemed to have. She begins to get up to crawl over to her when—

"Palila, no, next to me," Selia says, patting the seat beside him not unlike the way Moana's dad used to do. The girl frowns, and resigns herself to her proper place beside her father. "Chief training," he says to Moana. "You understand."

Moana nods. She does.

"So you got the tapa after all," Selia says, straightening up, eyebrows raised. "No godly intervention this time?"

And now she remembers.

"The gods help me when they want to, I never asked them for—" She takes a breath, and barely resists the urge to storm off, especially in front of the child. "Nope, breaking the cycle," she says. "No, Selia, the gods had nothing to do with it. Sailed on my own, traded on my own. Didn't even see Maui out there."

He nods, genuinely surprised, before he continues.

"So is there anything we can help you with while you're here?" he says.

Moana shrugs. "A water refill, some provisions for the trip back," she says, "and for you to hear me out. Because I've got a plan, cuz, and it's gonna help all of us out."

And there goes the frown, followed by the tiniest hint of a head tilt.

"Go on."

Moana grins.

It's simple, really, and she's surprised no one thought to do this before.

All the villages had been dealing with trade and local manufacturing on their own, dealing with shortages and surpluses locally and just hoping the other villages happened to have whatever they were looking for, hers and Motunui included. They couldn't just rely on themselves anymore, not with voyaging back as an option and all the complications that came with splitting villages up. They all need a system, at least while all the villages adjust to either building themselves or coping without a lot of its population.

"Because we're used to how it was before," she says, surprised at the look of relief on her cousin's face. "We'd banned voyaging of hundreds of years. We forgot that the villages used to talk to each other."

"But we've talked for years now," he says, gently taking Palila off his lap and back onto the seat next to him. "We've been trading ever since you restored the Heart."

"But village to village," Moana says. "What I'm suggesting is a big meeting. All the villages. And since all the new voyagers are going to pass by Motunui on the way east, I'm thinking it should be here, somewhere we can all reach. We sit down, we talk about which things we can all produce, and we figure out some steady trading routes. Fixed products, division of labour. And we decide at the meeting when we need to renegotiate."

He frowns again, placing his daughter back in her seat, before giving up and letting her sit in his lap. He straightens up again, as dignified as he can manage. "When?"

"The start of next year's trade season," she says. "All the villages, gathered here while the fleets prepare to launch. I've already talked to the other chiefs and they're up for it."

"You've decided all this before getting my permission?"

"Because we all know I'm just gonna pester you until you give in," she smirks. "So what do you say?"

The council around him mumbles and murmurs, and she's about to seize up and just find some hair or bits of skirt to fiddle with to calm herself down, when Selia holds up a hand and the crowd falls into silence.

Palila giggles, tries out the hand trick for herself to find everyone still quiet, and giggles again.

"I think," Selia says, and impossibly, the stoic serious cousin who is too much like her father, the cousin who grew up reprimanding Moana for wasting her station as the chief's daughter, cracks a smile, "this is something we can work with." And then adds, "Cuz."

Moana just about faints in relief.

Okay. Okay, maybe she could do this chief thing after all.

Notes: Okay, next up, baby's first suitor, complete with Big Bro Maui there to play matchmaker!