The supposed location of Te Po's Heart piece was located on the very outskirts of Lalotai. The realm had eventually started to slope just like a sandy beach, and where the ocean would have stretched out before Moana on a normal island, she was instead met with an immense wall of water that surrounded the entire land. It stretched upwards for miles and miles and rounded off into the magical dome that encased Lalotai.
Moana looked up in wonder as sea monsters swam leisurely past, their colourful forms lighting the strange world beyond in an eldritch display. She saw monstrous squid, turtles, manta rays, and even something that looked like a hideous fish with a light attached to a stem on its head. This creature in particular swam slowly past, one enormous, glowing eye latching on to Moana as it did. The fish licked its lips, then vanished into a stream of seaweed so enormous that it looked something more like a forest swirling gently about the ocean.
Speechless, the young chief was certain that she would never forget such a sight for as long as she lived. Her people, save for Gramma Tala, feared speaking of the realm of monsters, but Moana was suddenly determined to change that having seen its incredible beauty and sheer mystery for herself. With an expression of awe, she approached and held out her hands to place them upon the vertical wall of ocean.
"Yeah, that's right, stick a finger in and see what happens," Tamatoa drawled behind her.
The crab was relaxing on his belly and enjoying the largest coconut that Moana had ever seen in her life. She had found it on the ground while exploring the area, and had decided to roll it over to her new guide as a gesture of goodwill despite it being twice her height – and to prevent him from deciding to snack upon her once his hunger overcame his grief. When she turned back to look at him incredulously, she was half amused to find that he was drinking from it with a long, tubular piece of coral as a straw, and using an umbrella shaped fungi as decoration.
"Like, you specifically asked me not to eat you," he continued, relaxing his head against his free claw. "That's just rude, by the way. Would I tell you what you can and can't eat? Man, you humans eat crabs all the time, but you don't see me making a song and dance about it." His eyes suddenly perked up, and he slurped on his coconut thoughtfully. "I could, though, if you'd watch."
Moana quickly darted away from the edge of the water. She had been hypnotised by the beauty of the creatures beyond, which was perhaps their intention, and so she shook herself and retreated to the relative safety of Tamatoa's shadow.
"That sounds … really fun," she said through her teeth, doing her best to appear encouraging. "Maybe we should do it, er, later! Did you find the Heart piece while I was exploring?"
"Yeah, just thought I'd waste time hanging out here with some human while she rudely offers herself as food to the other monsters. In fact, I had the Heart piece all along!"
"Really?" Moana asked hopefully.
"No! Have you even got a brain in that fluffy little head of yours? Like I was saying before you ran off to play with coconuts, this is where I was carried off to when the sky caved in. This was where I was mobbed and left for dead. Again." He jibed accusingly. "One of the demons took the Heart piece and carried it off to some … some ..." Tamatoa's voice was suddenly becoming thick with emotion. Every part of him drooped with sadness to the extent it looked like he was melting into the sand.
"Some what?" Moana encouraged with a sigh, gingerly patting the side of his face.
"Some cursed-cursed cave over there," the crab replied moodily, waving a claw in the general direction of a mountainous region nearby. With dramatic flair, he face-planted the ground out of pure misery, the entirety of it becoming half buried. When he spoke again, his voice was heavily muffled by the white sand, but still he refused to move. "It's probably covered in all kinds of suspicious ooze!"
"Cursed-cursed?" the chief dared ask.
"Lalotai is cursed, but that cave? I took one look and I knew, I just knew that it was even more cursed. Its curses have curses, and there's hexes on top of those. There's only one thing that's frightened me more." Tamatoa's eyes popped out of the sand. After rapidly blinking grains out of them, he stared intensely at Moana. "Do you want to know what that is?" he rumbled, mystery lacing his tone.
Choosing one of the eyes to look at in case she angered him again, she reluctantly nodded, wishing more than anything that she didn't have to venture inside a cursed cave to retrieve a Heart piece that possibly wasn't even inside any more, having been carried off by a demon or monster enthralled by its power and beauty.
"The time I came across one of my grandma's moults. I thought it was her. I spoke to it for hours, but then she appeared and she was all squishy like a naked barnacle."
"I -" Moana began, and then thought better of enquiring after the odd explanation. She attempted to begin sidling off towards the rocky area behind her, cutting the conversation short as politely as she possibly could, because time was fleeting and she had to return to the world of humans with a Moon in tow. As amusing as the crab could be, it seemed that immortal beings forgot the essence of time and he seemed more content to talk than actually do anything, mostly about himself and his missing treasure.
Apparently getting the message, Tamatoa stood (leaving behind a rather large, crustacean-shaped crater in the sand) and tossed aside his now empty coconut.
"Let's see, let's see," he murmured, eyes swivelling about this way and that. "I'm trying to remember, but it's all just one big blur. There was gold, and … gold …" Tamatoa shook his head and scuttled miserably forwards, taking Moana by surprise and picking her up as he went. "Oh, all I can think about is treasure! My golden fleece! My magical lamp, my sunken fleet! My mint condition Hercules figurine! Centuries of collecting all for nothing. If it's all lost, it's going to take me another thousand years to get it all back."
"Well, at least it'll give you something to do, right?" Moana offered, struggling in the monster's vice-like grip. "Didn't you ever get lonely down here?"
"Lonely?" Tamatoa scoffed, unleashing a sudden burst of laughter that sent Moana's hair flying over her face. "You're a funny little thing. What's your name, again?"
"Moana," Moana replied, huffing and folding her arms when she realised that the crab wasn't going to let her go until he had either found the cave he was searching for or had finished talking. Neither of which seemed particularly likely, at this point, considering the fact his long-range vision seemed to be terrible given how often he almost bounced off of things. Or was that he was simply more focused on talking than he was searching?
"Really? Oh, actually, it hardly surprises me that the Ocean's Chosen One is literally named Ocean. That wasn't really creative of her, was it? Maybe that's why you were chosen – you were a raging do-gooder and you just had the right name at the right time."
"My grandma named me," Moana explained, more than a little offended by the implication the Ocean had chosen her because of her name. Though frustrated, she slowly looked up at the crab's horribly large face, reluctantly succumbing to her own curiosity. "Did your grandma name you?" she asked, albeit reluctantly, because she knew well enough the fate that had met the no doubt equally monstrous crab that had once lived in Lalotai.
The monster just rolled his eyes dramatically and didn't bother holding back his exasperation.
"Tamatoa's the only coconut crab with a name, babe, and I got it 'cause I earned it. Did you know that most crustaceans can't tell their carapace from their chelipeds? Even stonking great ones like my grandma. Man, it makes a great story, and I really think you'd be interested because of this whole goody-goody quest thing you're doing down here -"
"There!"
Moana became distracted by the sight of a hole on the rocky, uneven ground around them. It really was just that: a hole, a round space of pure nothingness that led into caverns unknown. It was only about the size of her canoe, so there was no chance of her receiving any help that Tamatoa was actually willing to give. Struggling strategically as a non-verbal reminder to her companion that she possessed her own pair of legs, she raced towards the entrance once she was placed onto the ground.
Dropping to her knees beside it, she stared down into the waiting abyss below. The outside seemed perfectly innocent, but when she tried to see into the darkness, a sensation of great foreboding swept across her skin, sending her hairs straight up in an awful chill. There was suddenly no doubt that this was the cursed cave the crab had mentioned minutes ago.
Moana instinctively reached up and held onto her grandma's necklace as if to receive strength from it.
"Hey, can you lower me down?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain stable. Her hands nervously gripped the moist plant that trailed around the circular edge of the cavern, gauging its strength. The stems were feeble, despite their mutated size, so there was little chance of them being used as a rope of sorts. "Gently?"
Tamatoa abruptly turned around and snapped one of his smaller rear pincers. With his eyes poking up over his dome-shamed back, he picked the young woman up by her ankle with it, causing her to shriek with surprise as she was yanked up and swung upside-down by a sharp set of claws. Midway through swinging, she grabbed her torch off the ground and held it fast to her chest, her heart beginning to beat violently as she was dangled over the ominous hole below.
"W-wait!" she cried out, flailing her free leg. "Isn't there a way to beat these demons? There might be an entire colony down there!"
"Oh, er … I would advise that you run. Yes, definitely run as fast as those pathetic appendages will take you."
And then the darkness swallowed her whole.
It took Moana several moments to realise that it was still dark because her eyes were tightly shut. Behind them, she could distinctly make out some sort of purple light. Squinting very slightly, she allowed herself to look upon the mysterious cavern below and regretted it almost instantly, because what she saw instigated a sudden swooping sensation in her stomach that made her feel quite nauseous.
Though she was being held upside-down, she wasn't upside-down any more, at least not on the terms of whatever physics or magic occupied the spacious cavern. Around her were torches lit with the same strange, purple fire that had occupied the Moon Shrine, and they were burning downwards rather than upwards, the smoke trailing down towards the ground – or what was now technically the ceiling, Moana supposed.
Feeling herself being shifted off to one side, she grabbed hold of one of the torches and held onto it when she was released by Tamatoa's claw. There was no need. Though her hair dangled down towards the darkness below, she was able to walk quite freely about what should have been the cavern ceiling, as if there was some magical force keeping her rooted there. Moana took a few cautious steps forwards, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark, violet hue that flickered across the rocky walls.
Ancient paintings adorned them, carrying out their stories in a series of moving pictures, just like the ones Tamatoa had shown her before. Whatever tales these were telling, she had no idea, but they seemed to be glorifying various monsters of old and their various feats, much like Maui's tattoos paid tribute to his triumphs.
"Well? Is it in there?" Tamatoa demanded. Moana turned to see that the monster had managed to fit a single eyeball through the entrance hole and was squinting in the darkness impatiently. "I've got one eye on the look-out, but hurry up. If I get pounced on by an army of demons, I'd rather have you up here to throw to them as a distraction while I run away."
"I'm looking," Moana responded, still uneasy with her movements as she began searching for the Heart piece. "Hey, Tamatoa? Why can't Te Po use this fire in her realm?"
"Well, it's not fire, is it? It's like a shadow of the fire that used to be here. Or something. You going down there must've woken the magic up. Don't touch it, don't even go near it, right? 'Cause it causes immense sadness in anyone that does. You can't look for treasure while crying, can you?" The crab's eye swivelled about a bit, searching the large space. "Ooh. What's that? It looks like a weird, furry little – oh, it's just you. Well, I don't see much searching going on right now."
"I'm upside-down!" Moana shot back quickly, though she did begin searching a little harder, inspecting deep crevices in the stone and behind large stalactites. Or were they stalagmites? It was difficult to tell, considering. However, any pebbles that might have occupied the surface would technically be above her, as she seemed to be the only thing exempt from the earth's pull in this cursed cavern. "There's nothing here. I think I need to be, uh … up there?" she said wistfully, gesturing down at the darkness beyond.
"Yes, it seems that way, doesn't it?" Tamatoa offered dryly. "Look, haven't you ever been in a evil cave before? Look for some kind of spell."
Too fearful to argue the monster's blunt response, Moana immediately set off to inspect the walls and their paintings. None of them displayed any words, save for one, the largest piece towards the narrowest end of the cavern. It was difficult to tell with the lighting, but it seemed to be a stylised image of Te Po, her drooping form transforming endlessly between goddess and corrupted behemoth. Beneath her were the shattered remnants of her Heart, black and pointed, and a spell crudely splashed across them.
A Heart of obsidian is brittle
A Heart with little in is crystal
Love makes the world go around
Love turns the world upside-down
With no other painting offering anything of use, Moana spoke those words aloud. As soon as the final one had passed her lips, a cold and lugubrious breeze rustled her hair and sent the purple flames flickering briefly, like the cave had awoken and breathed a cursed sigh from its depths. Worse, however, was the horribly hollow sensation that opened up within Moana's chest. It was the same emotion she had felt when she lost Gramma tala. An awful, heart-wrenching grief. A deep sadness that would be settled within her for as long as she lived. Affected by the emotional pain, she blinked back the tears that sprung to her eyes and was too numb to truly acknowledge the fact her feet were no longer touching anything remotely solid.
Before she lost the opportunity, she grabbed one of the torches from the wall as the magic righted all the wrongs and carried her slowly downwards through the shadows. Before long, she was the right way up and could feel the crunch of small stones beneath her feet.
Obsidian. Te Po's Heart was of obsidian, precious volcanic glass, just like Te Fiti's was made from pounamu.
Gritting her teeth, Moana managed to temporarily push away the near crippling surges of sorrow coiling tightly within her throat and chest. With a hard, painful swallow, she held the shadow-fire aloft and began scouring the ground for any sign of an obsidian shard. For several minutes she searched and searched, wiping the occasional tear from her cheek. As she began to lose hope, she tried to find some comfort in the mindless babbling she could just about hear over her head courtesy of the monstrous crab lingering in wait.
And then she heard it.
A faint but steady throbbing. A heartbeat.
Sullenly picking up the pace, Moana waved the torch this way and that until she located a harsh dip in the stone that was almost crater-like in appearance. The ground surrounding it was oddly scorched, like lightning had struck there long ago, but how could lightning reach so far into a cave?
The answer suddenly seemed obvious. The paintings, the hexes, and now this burnt crater – was this where Te Po's Heart had shattered? Was this cavern the birthplace of the power that sank the once pleasant island of Lalotai and turned it into a realm of corruption? The terrible things she was feeling began to make sense, and it was terrifying to think that the old, cursed magic occupying the place was the remnant's of a goddess's heartbreak.
Terrifying, yes, but Moana felt a deep sadness, too, and not just because of the shadow-fire. She felt for Te Po, and she felt guilty for judging Lalotai for what it seemed on the surface. Even the darkest of hearts could have some good in them, couldn't they? Through the corruption, the goddess and her monsters were still beings. Misguided and often wicked beings, of course, but by treating them as mindless beasts to be feared, perhaps the humans had made their own mistakes, too.
The young chief slid down the side of the crater and gently picked up the weakly pulsing shard of obsidian located in its centre. Whatever demon had stolen it from Tamatoa had obviously sought to put it back.
Then maybe it was where Te Po wanted it to be. Forgotten, but safe.
Maybe the goddess didn't want her Heart back.
After some deliberation, Moana stooped down and placed the shard exactly where she had found it. She couldn't take the shard away, but she could take something else: a better understanding of the mysterious entity they were up against. Perhaps that was the most important thing of all.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an odd clacking sound. Holding up the torch, the violet light illuminated a dark, inhuman figure balanced on the side of the crater, and lit the bioluminescent paint that decorated the creature's wooden mask.
Moana's heart began racing with fear. Either she had woken the demon or it had been watching and waiting the entire time. Whatever the case, the manner in which it brandished its long, finger-like claws suggested that she wasn't going to be met with any mercy.
"I'm not taking it," she insisted, pointing down at the broken Heart piece. "I'm leaving it here. I promise. That's what she wants, right?"
If the demon could understand her, it made no indication of it. The mask tilted as the creature tilted its head. The clacking and gibbering continued as it responded to her voice, and it adjusted its legs in preparation to pounce.
Moana made a sound of dismay and immediately scurried up the other side of the crater as quickly as humanely possible. She shouted the spell on the wall in an effort to reverse it and be sent floating upwards towards the hole in the ceiling, but to her horror, nothing happened. Was there another spell she had to use? If so, there was little chance of her actually finding it before being leapt upon by the monstrous little creature squawking behind her.
"Maui!" she yelled out of desperation. Panting, she sprinted past a moss-coated boulder and then circled around it, hoping to give herself an extra couple of seconds. However, when she glanced up, the demon was perched on top of the boulder and lashing out with its awful claws. "Agh! Get off of me!" she shrieked as the sharp appendages snagged in her hair. Solid rock met her skull firmly as she was pulled backwards. "Tamatoa!"
Crying out, she slammed the base of her torch into the demon's hand and forced it to let go. Following a pained howl, the demon simply dove down and grabbed her by the ankle, this time, sending the young woman flying down onto her front with a hard oomph.
The claws raked into her skin. In any other situation, she might have been able to acknowledge the pain, but as it was, she was simply too terrified. Spinning onto her back, she kicked her legs wildly in an attempt to fend the monster off. With the torch now forgotten off to one side, everything was a blur of feet, fists, and claws as Moana fought desperately to save herself.
The scuffle didn't last long. When an almighty quake shook the walls for a short time, the demon stopped lunging for Moana and instead glanced upwards at where the concurrent boom had occurred. Bits of rock trickled down the walls and disturbed the silence that followed.
They were followed by larger chunks of rock, and then larger still as something assaulted the earth over their heads. When actual parts of the ceiling began cracking and caving in, that was Moana's cue to run to safety.
Or try to, at least. No sooner as she had started scrambling up to her feet, sunlight burst through the holes in the ceiling and then she was airborne. Her presumption was that it was Maui in his hawk form carrying her to safety, and she even went as far as to cry out his name in pure relief as the darkness and curses that had contained her were rapidly left behind and obliterated with chunks of falling rock.
There would be no chance of recovering the Heart piece, now, and that was probably for the best.
"What did you just call me?" came a most offended voice. Moana opened one of her eyes and nervously peered out at her surroundings. Lalotai. She never would have thought it would come as a relief to see the realm. Now? She could appreciate the bright colours and oddities for what they were.
"Uh ..." the young chief managed, coming to the realisation that it was Tamatoa holding her by the back of her garment. Despite all she had just encountered, she was able to produce a sheepish grin as she came face to face with a rather disgruntled looking crab-monster. "Maui?"
"That's the worst thing you've ever said," Tamatoa responded snidely, jabbing at her with his free claw. "How could you – Oh, eurgh, what's that on your face? You're leaking from your eye-holes. Is that what crying looks like? Oh, yuk, it's all coming out of your nose, too!"
Moana rubbed her face with a shaking hand. Indeed, it came away moist with tears.
She tried to hold it in. She really did. However, the heartbreak she had felt down in that cave – and then being pursued by a terrifying demon with enormous claws – well, even with her steely resolve, she couldn't hold in the sudden flood of tears that suddenly began erupting from her. Shaking and fearful, she covered her eyes and sobbed violently.
With the torch now on the ground and snuffed out by the sand, the shadow-fire was gone. The cursed cave was destroyed. The pain in her heart was fading, but there a piece of it would always remain. At the very least, there was one person in the world who knew of Te Po's immense capacity for love and loss.
"Why are you making funny noises?" Tamatoa asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. Moana would have laughed it she wasn't so traumatised by all that had happened. "Stop it at once, you, or I'll … Or else!" He paused and gave her a tiny shake, and then added in an even tinier voice, "Please?"
"Y-you helped me," Moana blubbed, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to stem the flow of tears. "Th-thank you."
"I didn't. I was just – Oh, wait, I did." Apparently not liking the thought of helping somebody, Tamatoa quivered his eye-stalks in distaste. "No, no, I was just helping myself, you see, because you can't get my treasure back if you're dead, and I don't have time to wait for another stupid human to plop down from some stinky island." The crab lowered his antennae and began wiggling them over Moana searchingly. "Where is it? Where's the Heart piece?"
Despite herself, the girl laughed and attempted to swat the antennae away.
"I think I found something better."
Later that day, after she had gotten over the violent and emotional incident in the cavern, Moana travelled a little further with her companion before setting up camp. They found a shattered, curved piece of coral that was so enormous it encompassed even Tamatoa quite easily and provided shelter for them both. Though weather wasn't exactly an issue in this realm, hungry monsters were.
She set up a fire with her kindling and left for a while to pick some berries to eat. Picking berries in Lalotai was far more difficult than in the above-world, mostly because all of them were the same size as her head and required enormous bursts of strength on her part. Taking two back to their camp, she walked around Tamatoa's massive form and was surprised to find him caught in an enraptured silence.
The fire she had lit, once a warm, glowing orange, was now tainted with shadow, purple and black and as ominous as the flames she had found in the Heart cave. Instinct told her to hang back and avoid the purple fire, and so she did so, not allowing herself to get close enough to become affected by its power. Guilt told her to help the monster that was staring into it as if it was talking to him, because he looked as sad as a crab could possibly look.
"Are you missing your treasure?" Moana asked, gingerly lowering herself and her berries to the sandy ground. With a cautious glance directed at the vibrant pink fruit, she picked a bit of flesh away from one and tasted it, finding it good enough to eat.
"Of course I am," Tamatoa responded morosely, lowering his head onto one of his claws. "Look at this, shrimp-girl; the fire went out and then this shadow-fire appeared, but I can't bring myself to put it out. It's like I want to feel awful."
"My grandma would say that there's something on your mind," Moana pushed casually, inwardly hoping that the cursed fire would help her better understand the monster, too. She didn't entirely enjoy subjecting anything to misery, of course, but for the sake of working with him for the greater good, perhaps it was for the best, because there was little chance of him sharing his woes with her otherwise.
Tamatoa sighed so heavily that the stringy plants hanging from the ceiling of their shelter wafted.
"I feel suddenly compelled to say that you were right earlier. It gets lonely down here. So painfully, horribly lonely. There used to be lots of coconut crabs like me, but I was the only one who could think and speak like a human. Same goes for all the monsters down here. You've held the longest conversations with me I've had for hundreds of years."
"What happened to your family?" Moana asked, knowing full well the answer probably wasn't going to be pleasant.
"Crabs don't have families, you silly little barnacle. They only communicated to hunt each other or make eggs. My mum ate my dad when I was four hours old. It's all right for you humans, isn't it? You have people who love you just because you exist. Well, everybody hates me because I exist, 'cause I'm just some giant, ugly crustacean. An giant, ugly crustacean with fabulous taste." With another, withering sigh, Tamatoa shrunk into his shell miserably. "I suppose you're going to leave once you get your precious Moon back," he muttered, rolling his eyes dramatically.
"I have to because my people are up there, but you'll have your treasure," Moana reminded him.
"Well, yes, but … I don't think being stunningly beautiful feels quite the same as having M-" The crab suddenly covered his mouth with his claw and cringed. "Urgh. I meant – It's not the same as, well, other things."
Ah. Maui. It hardly surprised Moana that the demi-god was apparently a source of the sorrow and frustration that haunted the deepest recesses of Tamatoa's mind. Hadn't the two of them actually been friends, once? Whatever had caused the penultimate fight between them must have been something truly terrible, for it had resulted in the crab losing one of his legs and Maui boasting much resentment.
Moana chewed on her curiosity for a short time, knowing it was probably better to keep it to herself, but the desire for the truth simply became too great.
"You two could be friends again, you know. You could just pretend like nothing ever happened, and it'll be fine," she insisted. "You must miss having him around, right?"
"I suppose," Tamatoa relinquished, growing more miserable each passing second. "Do you know what caused our battle? A coconut. That's right. One dropped on his head and he thought I threw it at him. Granted, there was a lot of stuff before that which kinda caused some tension, but it all came down to a coconut that one day. I lost a leg and he got a cool tattoo. It's so not fair. Do you want to hear the real stinker, though?"
Moana nodded, unable to speak through her mouthful of berry.
"That dumb mini-god made me feel like I was nothing."
Not having expected such an emotional admittance, Moana swallowed her food and then remained silent, a pang of disquiet arising suddenly within her. She knew well enough that her friend had done things that he wasn't proud of, and that he possessed an infamous penchant for mischief, but just how far had he gone in the past? Were there things he had done that she didn't know about?
"He came to Lalotai all the time when it was an island on the ocean," Tamatoa explained. "I knew him when I was a tiny little hermit crab. He helped me find shells until I grew up and didn't need them, so I helped him by showing him the secret entrance to Abokas, a tunnel that opened every full moon. That's right, the same one we're travelling to! He used that tunnel to steal the fire from Te Po, and guess what? When he took her last nail, she caught him on the wing with her power and sent the guy tumbling. I picked up his fish hook and carried the fire out. That's how I got my name, but Maui never told the story with me in it."
Stunned, Moana's face fell. "You helped him bring fire to mankind?"
"Yes, now don't make me say it again, it makes me feel like pummelling something! He said he couldn't tell anyone because humans had a thing against crabs. For the first two-hundred years, I didn't mind, but then he told me about what his mother did to him and I laughed 'cause a part of me hated him for being so popular. Like ten minutes after that, a coconut fell on his head and sort of, erm, escalated the situation."
In silence, Moana stood up again and located one of the enormous leaves she had dragged in to make a bed with. Using its great weight, she dropped it on top of the shadow-fire and extinguished the flame to end the pain it was causing her companion. She herself felt numb with shock and disappointment, but a part of her was glad she knew, because now she understood Tamatoa and she knew Maui a little better, too.
It seemed the line between hero and villain was becoming more and more blurred. Perhaps there wasn't actually a line at all, and heroes and villains were just people.
That night, Moana slept uneasily, and oddly, it wasn't because of the monster sleeping nearby.
