Things were not going well. The monstrous mantis shrimp had darted forward to attack almost immediately, leaving little time to even think. They were at a disadvantage from the start, hemmed in by the close quarters of the narrow canyon. In years past, this might not have been quite as daunting a prospect. Even when Tamatoa had been smaller and Maui less experienced, they had constantly faced overwhelming odds and always prevailed. However, unlike those days, this time it was clearly a matter of every man—or crab—for himself.

When the creature made it's initial attack, Maui broke left and Tamatoa broke right—both cleanly escaping it's first lunge and the deadly swing of its club arms. That was the last moment of even fleeting, inadvertent coordination between the two of them, however.

Maui had quickly shifted to a hawk to get above the shrimp and out of it's arm range, but it was largely unnecessary. The creature was clearly more focused on Tamatoa, who had darted to the side and was trying to maneuver around the shrimp in the tight confines of the ravine. The two giant crustaceans had circled tensely in the small space. Perhaps it had decided the crab was a bigger threat.

Well, Maui had no intention of letting it have that misconception long. With a shrill call, he had folded his wings and dove towards the creature—hurtling towards it at a breakneck pace.

And yet, nothing went right. There was no coordination, nor communication. Tamatoa was constantly fouling Maui's strikes at the mantis shrimp, getting in the way at critical times or drawing the creature out of range just as Maui went to close in. Of course, Maui was inadvertently doing likewise, if Tamatoa's irritated curses at him were any indication.

The monstrous mantis shrimp seemed to have caught on to their dysfunction and was quickly turning that to its own advantage. This, of course, only made a bad situation just that much worse.

In the disorganized chaos, Maui was thrown off by yet another poorly timed maneuver by Tamatoa. He had been swooping down, talons outstretched, to hammer at its head when the crab had made a sudden swing at the shrimp as well. Maui veered off at the last second, avoiding the sharp snap of Tamatoa's pincers. As Maui swung out of the way, the shrimp managed to clip his hawk form with a glancing sweep of it's arm. It was just a mild blow, but it sent agony shooting through Maui's body before sending him careening wildly into the canyon wall. His head slammed hard against the coral. Dazed by the blow, he lost his concentration and thus his grip on his transformation. When he slid down the wall to hit the ground, he was back in his human skin. The shrimp had delivered a shockingly heavy blow and everything hurt. He was at least grateful that he'd only been barely sideswiped. The creature packed quite a punch—worse in one mild blow than the entire beat down Tamatoa had given him just a few weeks earlier. Maui shook his head, trying to clear the cloying haze that had settled on him from the impact.

When he'd regained his wits enough to rejoin the fight, albeit somewhat shakily, his attention was sharpened by the low, shuddering call of the creature—timbre rising in rage. Tamatoa had it by the tail, though it seemed to be a tenuous grip at best on the feathery fins that fringed the end of the creature's body. The two monsters were dragging each other around and it was hard to gauge which one was really exerting more leverage. The crab was doing everything he could, it seemed, to avoid the shrimp's front and the lethally dangerous weapons it carried there.

Maui shook his head again. He ignored the all over ache in his body and the dizziness that sent his head spinning, then shifted back into a hawk once more. At his high, raptor's battle cry, the shrimp whipped back around with a sharp, sudden movement to face the oncoming hawk. Unfortunately, this wrenched its tail free from Tamatoa's claws, too. The crab stumbled, overbalanced, and nearly lost his footing, but caught himself at the last second. He shouted something unflattering at Maui, but it went unheeded as Maui banked sharply around the shrimp to avoid another strike from it's club arms.

The shrimp monster turned, following him, but broke off quickly. Confused, Maui glanced under his wing to see why and braked sharply in the air in alarm. He'd accidentally lead the creature in a curve around towards Tamatoa, who was now cornered by it in a tight spot of the canyon.

Tamatoa was backed up against the coralline wall, claws snapping at the giant shrimp. He had nowhere to go, though. The canyon walls had narrowed to a small funneling side-chasm where Tamatoa was now caught. The shrimp's long body effectively blocked him from getting past without having to deal directly with it's horrifyingly fast smashing arms. Tamatoa wasn't giving up the fight by any means, but even at a distance Maui could see there was a hint of fear in his huge eyes. Every snap the crab attempted to make, the mantis shrimp countered with a swing of its own weaponry as he forced Tamatoa farther back. It wasn't looking good.

Then the shrimp darted forward, lightning fast, in a flash of vivid colors. With no room to maneuver, Tamatoa had no escape. He had a look of panic on his face as he ducked his head swiftly, at the very last second. Then there was a bang like a boulder crashing upon stone, punctuated by a shriek of pain from Tamatoa. Both sounds rang off the canyon walls like the end of the world was upon them. The shrimp had missed Tamatoa's head, but had instead landed a direct hit on the crab's shell. For a moment, Maui thought that it had actually managed to crack Tamatoa's tough exoskeleton. By some stroke of luck, though, it seemed that the vain crab's own treasure had managed to save him—absorbing and distributing the force, thus sparing him more serious damage from what was obviously a heavy blow. Clearly, though, it had not spared him the pain if Tamatoa's anguished yowling was anything to go by.

Despite whatever pain he was in, the crab retaliated fast and brutally. He made a decisive, but desperate lunge and grabbed one of the shrimp's eyestalks with a pincer. Grasping it tightly, he gave it a hard twist. Maui knew enough about dealing with monstrous crustaceans to know that going for the eyestalks was a low, dishonorable move. He also knew Tamatoa well enough to know the crab wasn't above fighting dirty.

Cheap shot or not, it had the desired effect. The shrimp let out an unpleasant guttural sound, jerking back a few steps. It made to strike again, but it had opened just enough space between them for Tamatoa to skitter away and escape the confining crevice.

That was clearly the last straw for the crab, though. While the shrimp was tending to its injured eye, Tamatoa slipped past it and began a hurried retreat further up the canyon, not even sparing a glance back to see if Maui was coming too. Maui would have liked to admonish him for abandoning the fight, but the demigod himself was still dizzy and hurting too. What should have been a simple takedown had clearly gone far off course. With a glance back at the shrimp monster—still distracted and fussing with its eye—he made up his mind and flew unsteadily after the crab. At this point, retreat seemed the only sensible option.

To Maui's relief, the giant mantis shrimp didn't pursue them as they fled out of it's canyon territory and up to the other side. Nevertheless, he could hear it's angry, low-frequency rumble resonating in the very air even after the creature itself was well behind them—an ominous, thrumming warning that echoed in Maui's ears.

Tamatoa was not happy. The idiot demigod had woken up the terrifying mantis shrimp—a natural predator of crabs, he would have liked to remind Maui, and a bad neighbor that Tamatoa did his best to avoid as a general rule after narrowly escaping it's not-so-tender attentions once already a few centuries prior. Then Maui had nearly gotten them both killed with his showboating and his ill-timed, self-centered, self-righteous—

Tamatoa cut his own thoughts short, trying to rein in his anger. He had agreed to this fool's errand for reasons that were his own, but he hadn't signed on to get himself killed along the way. Now, however, his whole shell felt like it was on fire—pain spidering out from where the shrimp had struck him. The only time he could remember ever feeling worse was when Maui had ripped his leg off. His only thin consolation now was that he was still in one piece, such as it was, and that his shell had not cracked under the blow. It was a frighteningly close call, though. Had it not been for his treasure—

His treasure! Safely out of the canyon now, he paused to look over his shoulder, then let out a gasp. Many of the items where the shrimp's club-arm had fallen were utterly pulverized, smashed into nothing but glittering dust. He let out a short wail of anguish at the destruction of some of his shinies, but cut the sound off quickly lest Maui hear it and mock him for it. He wanted to stop and take inventory, but even he had to admit that now didn't seem to be a good time for it.

Particularly since, right on cue, the demigod was approaching. He was still shaped as a hawk and was wobbling slightly in the air as he flew. Apparently Maui hadn't come away from the fight unscathed either it would seem. Well, Tamatoa didn't have any sympathy for him. Not one bit. Not while he'd nearly had his shell split on that mini-god's account.

The hawk landed gracelessly and shifted back to a human form with a stumble. Tamatoa indulged a moment of silent satisfaction upon seeing that Maui looked as rough as he himself felt. Despite that, he expected some sort of chiding and derision from the demigod about running from the fight, but was surprised when none was forthcoming.

Instead, Maui took a couple steps off the path and sat down heavily. Well, 'sat down' might have been a charitable way of describing it. It was more like a controlled collapse and some distant part of Tamatoa felt an unbidden twinge of faint sympathy for his former friend.

Of course, then Maui opened his big mouth. "Yeah, great job back there. Could you possibly have been more in the way?" he sniped, words thick with sarcasm. "I got knocked outta the sky because of you can't pay attention."

Whatever sympathetic feelings Tamatoa might have been entertaining even at the very fringes of his mind were utterly annihilated. He couldn't afford to let himself fall back into those old familiar patterns anyway. Tamatoa was already agitated and grumpy, with bothersome things on his mind that he couldn't shake off. Things had not been improved by Maui barging into his life yet again. Then his mood had only soured further from the lingering, fiery pain lacing through his shell from the mantis shrimp's attack. Now, in addition to all that, he was also being insulted by this pompous little semi-god. He glared down at Maui. "Me? How about you? That idiotic move of yours nearly got me killed!"

"Well, if you hadn't been in the way again, maybe you wouldn't have gotten hit," Maui threw back at him.

"I think you did it on purpose, man," Tamatoa growled. "Either that or you're just plain stupid. Which is it?"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Maui said, getting defensive. He was back on his feet now, glaring hotly up at Tamatoa. "Though maybe I should have, for all the help you've been."

Tamatoa scoffed. "Hey, I had him by the tail until you botched it!"

"Oh, please," Maui retorted, rolling his eyes. "You barely had a hold on him at all. You didn't need my help to lose him!"

Well, that was true. He hadn't really had a good grip on the shrimp, but that was beside the point! Tamatoa breezed past the comment. "Maybe you just wanted him to finish the job you started," he hissed accusingly. "Break a few more pieces off, huh?"

At that, a look passed across Maui's face that Tamatoa had trouble discerning—an aberration when usually he could read the demigod so easily. Maui's mouth opened and closed without speaking, then the fight seemed to go out of him and he sat back down wearily.

Tamatoa eyed him with suspicion. He wasn't hearing a denial. When Maui finally found his voice again, however, he sounded tired. "If we can't work together on this, we're probably both going to wind up dead," he said flatly.

Maui's weariness was contagious and Tamatoa suddenly felt it too—or perhaps it was just fatigue after the fight, he told himself. Either way, succumbing to the pain and exhaustion as the heat of argument fled him, he sank down to the ground too and sprawled on the dirt with a huff. Loathe though he would be to admit it, Tamatoa knew Maui was probably right—at least this time. They had bungled the whole affair with the mantis shrimp. Honestly, the two of them should have been unstoppable. In their youth they had faced far worse together and succeeded. These days, Tamatoa was larger and more powerful and they were both far more seasoned. It should have been easy, but it wasn't.

Once, Tamatoa had trusted the demigod completely. That ship had long since sailed, though. After all that had happened, he saw no reason to trust Maui even in the slightest. He didn't believe a single word the demigod said. He didn't know what this whole trip was really about, but Maui was hiding something and that cast his whole story into doubt. Nothing thus far had given him any inclination to change that, either. Besides, Tamatoa had made his own plans. Those irritating spiders had told him to rethink his strategy and that was exactly what he had done.

So he said nothing at all.

They loitered there for longer than they likely should have when there were urgent world-saving matters to attend to. Honestly, though, Maui had needed the break. It took a while for the all-over body ache and the fuzzy feeling in his head to fade away, but eventually it began to subside to a tolerable level. He could tell the crab was still hurting too, though he was clearly refusing to admit any weakness to Maui. The crab eyed him with what Maui assumed was distrust, never fully relaxing.

Did Tamatoa really think Maui would intentionally try to get him killed? Maui felt disquieted at the very thought. The whole reason he was doing this was to keep Lalotai—and his former friend—from being destroyed, not that he could dare tell Tamatoa that and give him something else to use against him.

There wasn't time to dwell on such things, though. Particularly if it meant Maui would have to actually deal with the issue rather than avoid it. Besides, they needed to get moving. While they were clear of the mantis shrimp's canyon, it nevertheless was poor strategy to just sit out in the open and wait for more trouble to find them. With that in mind, Maui got got back to his feet—steadier now and without the lightheaded rush he'd felt in the wake of the fight. Tamatoa's antennae twitched as Maui moved, then he hurried to rise as well.

Maui looked up at the crab, trying to go for cheerful instead of confrontational to at least maintain some peace. "Lead the way," he offered with half grin and a flamboyant gesture of his arms.

The crab gave him a sideways glance, looking for a moment like he had something to biting say. Whatever it was, changed his mind and instead dipped an antennae in assent. Tamatoa started off, heading away from the canyon. He was walking a bit stiffly and at a slower pace now, but without complaint. Well, Maui wasn't going to argue with that, as it was easier to keep up with the long legged crustacean now.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maui caught Tamatoa peering intently down at him as they walked. Caught out, he looked away quickly and acted as if he hadn't been doing anything. The crab wasn't fooling anybody. Maui frowned, but kept walking and said nothing.

Not more than a few minutes later, however, the crab was staring at him again. Maui bristled this time, annoyed. "Okay, what?" he demanded.

Busted, Tamatoa flicked his antennae nonchalantly to downplay it. "You've got a lot more tattoos these days," he prompted, badly feigning bland disinterest.

Maui glanced down at himself. Tattoos covered nearly every inch of his skin. He supposed it was a far cry from the last time they had seen each other as friends. The question wasn't necessarily unexpected, as the crab always had an eye for detail. Maui wasn't feeling very forthcoming, though. He shrugged noncommittally, "been busy."

"Oh yeah?" Tamatoa pried, not satisfied with that answer. Before Maui could react, the crab had reached over and poked him hard in the belly with a claw. "What's that one?"

"Hey!" Maui yelped at the poke. "Wasn't it you who said something about keeping your hands to yourself?"

The crab smirked, "well, I don't have hands."

Maui snorted. "A technicality. You know what I mean!"

"Don't change the subject, man. What's that big one?"

Maui rolled his eyes. It was pointless to keep arguing and, besides, he did like to show off. Maybe just a little. Not to mention that before everything fell apart, he had been eager to share the stories of these exploits with Tamatoa. So he didn't see the harm in answering.

"Well," Maui began, "that one was for stealing fire."

"You stole fire?"

"Yeah!" Maui said, brightening with the prospect of telling a good tale. It reminded him of when he first met the crab—who had demanded to hear his stories over and over. "You see, I had to steal the fingernails of—"

Tamatoa interrupted his story almost immediately, much to Maui's chagrin. "And let me guess, you gave it to the humans?" he asked blandly, without even waiting for the details.

"Well, yeah," Maui replied, as if that should have been obvious. "So, as I was saying—"

"Is this what you were doing after you dumped me on that island?"

The question cut Maui to the quick. "Well, I—" he stumbled over his words. He had been mistaken, this wasn't anything like when the crab was young and innocently inquisitive.

"Silly question," Tamatoa said dismissively, with a note of mild disgust in his voice. He peered at Maui again. "How about that one?" He raised a pincer to poke at Maui again, but Maui lifted his hook ever so slightly and the crab aborted the movement and scratched at his chin instead, as if that had been his initial intention all along. "The one of the little human girl. Is that the one you dragged down here?"

There was something in Tamatoa's voice that Maui didn't like and he stiffened. "You mean the one you tried to eat," Maui shot back reproachfully. "She's not your concern."

As Maui should have expected, the crab zeroed in on his reluctance. "Oh, Maui's found himself a new friend, has he?" he said with a sly smirk. "A mortal,even." Tamatoa stressed the word, not having to elaborate on the implication there. Moana was mortal and her lifespan was just a flicker compared to Maui's own.

Maui didn't need the reminder.

"Mind your own business," he snapped back, glaring at the dirt on the ground ahead of him. Despite trying to let it all slide off him, the crab was starting to get under his skin. "At least I've got a friend. Can't imagine there's anybody who puts up with you."

It was perhaps a low thing to say, but Maui was growing tired of this constant back and forth and just didn't care. Low or not, it seemed to do the trick. Tamatoa shut up almost instantly.

The silence stretched on for longer than Maui expected, too. A glance up showed that the crab was looking steadfastly ahead as they walked. For a moment, Maui almost felt a little guilty for his words and looked for something to say towards walking them back.

Then Tamatoa spoke up and thoroughly ruined that idea. "What do you even know about being friends?" he said coldly, still staring straight ahead.

Maui felt his temper rise again. "More than you do!" he blurted impulsively, but then his thoughts inadvertently strayed to what he had found hidden in Tamatoa's lair and his anger swiftly deflated. "Look," he started again, in what he thought was a very reasonable tone. "I've changed. I'm a different demigod now!" And he was very proud of that! He puffed his chest up just a bit.

Tamatoa stopped walking without warning and turned to look down at him with eyes narrowed. He gave Maui a cool once over. "Oh really? You've changed? Could have fooled me." This time, there was no mockery or derision. Tamatoa stated it simply, as if it were just an everyday fact, then started walking again without another word.

But Maui had changed, hadn't he? Tamatoa just couldn't see it, that's all. Well, Maui knew that he'd changed. Moana knew too. That's all that mattered.

Why did the crab's words always burrow so deep into him, though?

The watery light from above had rapidly faded into darkness as the day turned to night. The twilight in Lalotai was strange, without any of the brilliant sunset colors of the tropics. Instead, the light just gradually disappeared and left a murky gloom in its place, illuminated only by the garish bioluminescent foliage and colorful creatures of the monstrous realm. In the times Maui had previously visited, he had tried not to remain in Lalotai after the sun went down. The experience of seeing it this way now was foreign and unsettling. That unsettling feeling was only highlighted when he looked up at the now dark underside of the sea. There were no stars, nor any light at all, above him. Instead, the water-sky seemed to absorb all light like a vast inky void. Even the ripples of the water were invisible in the dark. Maui shivered, suddenly feeling very far from home without stars to guide him.

There was a short laugh from not far away and Maui turned to see Tamatoa watching him intently. The crab's own bioluminescence was glowing softly in the darkness, casting eerie pale light around him. "Not what you expected?"

"There's no stars," Maui said rather numbly, stating the obvious.

"Of course there aren't."

There was something in the crab's voice that Maui couldn't quite identify, but at this point he was certain that it didn't pay to ask. Instead, he changed the subject. "So," he began, drawing the syllable out, "do we stop for the night now or keep going a while more?"

Tamatoa quirked one eye. "Are you planning on sleeping?" he asked. It shouldn't have been a loaded question, but something about the darkly amused way the crab said it was a bit unnerving.

Maui hesitated. Well, he had been planning on sleeping, but suddenly the thought of sleeping near a giant, murderous monster with a centuries-old grudge seemed less than appealing.

"Well, uh," Maui faltered, "how much farther is it?" Maybe they could just walk through the night.

The crab smirked.

"Oh, come on!" Maui grumbled, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"

"Why would I make anything easy for you?" the crab shot back, still baring his teeth in a twisted smile.

"Can't we just—" Maui ran a hand through his tangled hair in agitation. "—I dunno. Can't we just call a truce?"

"A truce," was the deadpan reply.

"Yeah!" Maui continued. "Look, if it's that much farther, we gotta sleep." Tamatoa looked like he was about to interrupt, but Maui quickly kept going without giving him the chance. "Even you—don't think I don't see you practically limping! So just work with me here," he said, a faint pleading note towards the end.

The crab monster looked very much like he wanted to argue further and Maui braced himself for another round, but then Tamatoa shrugged. Well, he tried to shrug anyway, but couldn't hide a wince of discomfort. Obviously, he was still sore from their encounter with the enormous mantis shrimp.

Maui gave him a smug look. "See."

"Shut up," Tamatoa muttered back in a sulk.

In the end, Tamatoa had given in—with much grumbling and muttering, but given in nevertheless. He'd lead them to what he claimed was a safe place to camp for the night. Maui was less certain though, as the spot Tamatoa had chosen seemed terribly exposed.

They were in the middle of a vast, mostly flat and tree-less plain with only a sparse few rock formations and no towering reefs. Low vegetation carpeted the ground in all directions in mottled patches of glowing turquoise and orange. The plants were knee high on Maui and were more like soft, fleshy corals than actual plants. They swayed gently together, despite the lack of any breeze and in perfect synchronicity with the other plants. Maui had reached out to touch one out of curiosity, but it shrank back from his fingers and pulsed brightly with light. When he'd disregarded it's retreat and touched it anyway, it promptly squirted some sticky, foul smelling greenish liquid on his hand. Tamatoa had seen the whole thing, patiently watching and pointedly declining to warn him. He had chuckled as Maui recoiled in disgust and tried to wipe the fetid gunk off his fingers. Maui didn't touch any more plants after that.

Tamatoa had lead the up a small hill, the only low rise over the otherwise featureless plain. His eyestalks had swiveled to take in the whole view around them. Apparently satisfied, he settled onto the coarse dirt and neatly tucked his legs under himself.

Maui gave him a skeptical look, one eyebrow cocked. "Here? Really? Shouldn't we find some cave or something? Some sort of shelter?"

The crab looked at him as if he was a particularly stupid child. "There area no unoccupied caves in Lalotai," he explained slowly, his voice dripping with condescension at Maui's ignorance. "Even if they are empty, it's only temporary. Do you really want to be woken up in the middle of the night by some creature coming home to find you sleeping in its spot?"

Well, no. Maui didn't want that kind of late night surprise, but this still seemed like a poor location. "Isn't this a little—you know—open, though?"

Tamatoa gave him a toothy, mocking grin. "Oh, is little Maui scared?" he taunted, voice pitching higher. The crab's smile grew more feral. "You should worry less about the monsters out there."

The implication that Maui had more to fear from Tamatoa himself was not lost on him and he shifted his grip on his hook almost involuntarily. Tamatoa's antennae twitched ever so slightly, which likely meant he'd noticed the gesture.

"We agreed to a truce," he reminded the crab, warning in his voice.

"Did we?" he replied with fake innocence. "Well then, I guess you're safe for tonight." He smiled again, a rather sharp-edged rictus in glowing blue and pink. It didn't inspire confidence.

Honestly, he was having trouble keeping up with Tamatoa's mood shifts. The crab had always been a little moody, but there was just something off about how quickly he vacillated from one extreme to another on this trip. It had been more than a thousand years, however, since he'd spent much time with Tamatoa. Maybe he'd just gotten more—well—crabby in his old age. Maui didn't think that was it, though. He couldn't shake the feeling, but he didn't bring it up either. So far everything he'd asked the crab had backfired on him rather nastily.

When Maui didn't reply right away, Tamatoa went on, with an unexpectedly genuine explanation. "The reefs are crawling with monsters at night. Out here, there's nothing of concern. And even if there were, we'd have plenty of warning from this vantage point," he said with a flick of his long antennae.

With that clearly meant as a final word on the matter, Tamatoa had turned his eyestalks away from Maui to inspect the damaged treasures on his shell where he'd been struck by the mantis shrimp. Within moments he was fully engrossed in his inventory work and spared no further attention for Maui.

Maui shrugged, mostly to himself, and dropped down to the hard earth. It was uncomfortable, but he'd dealt with worse. He laid back, putting his hands behind his head and using his hook as a pillow—not necessarily for comfort, but more out of a lingering distrust for his decidedly untrustworthy companion.

He stared up at the dark, featureless underside of the sea and let his thoughts drift. It was a darkness more complete than even than nights where clouds blotted out all the stars in the sky in the world above. It was nights like that where navigation by the stars was impossible and he would have to rely on other methods—like those he'd taught Tamatoa when he was young and small. Maui glanced at the crab, then back up at the sea.

His tone wistful, Maui spoke up. "Do you remember—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, man," Tamatoa cut in, looking up from his task. "Because it sounds like you're about to try and appeal to some sense of nostalgia. And I have none to appeal to."

Maui felt a stab of annoyance, but then it faded. He sat up and tossed a sly look to the crab. "Is that so?" he asked—a leading question.

"That's right," he replied flatly.

"Then why do you still have that shell I gave you thousands of years ago?" Maui asked with deliberate casualness.

"What shel—" Tamatoa began, then stumbled through his words. The expression on his face was priceless, one of dumbfounded, open-mouthed surprise at being called out. "I—" he sputtered again.

Then he quickly recovered, but of course the damage was mostly done by then. His expression hardened anyway. "A worthless piece junk that I forgot to throw away," he said with aggressive dismissal, but Maui could hear the lie.

Maui had meant to use it as a way to tease the crab, but there was an incredibly faint, nearly undetectable hint of sadness in Tamatoa's voice. Had he not known the crab so well, Maui never would have known it was there. He did notice it, however, and suddenly he didn't feel right about using it as a weapon against his former friend.

"Tamatoa," he began hesitatingly, as a flare of guilt welled up within him. "I— look, I'm—" he trailed off, uncertain. What was he going to say? He wanted to make that nagging feeling of guilt go away, but didn't quite know how.

"You're what?" came the sharp reply, shattering those thoughts.

Irked, Maui closed his mouth. "Nevermind," he finished with a snort.

"That's what I thought."

Maui laid back down, staring blankly back again at the odd sky above him and saying nothing more. Tiredness descended upon him, but he'd have to outlast the crab. Falling asleep first just wasn't an option. Not for the first time, he wished things were like they were eons ago—when he didn't have to fear treachery from his old friend. So far, this whole day had been like a grotesque parody of their adventures together centuries ago and it ached to think about what used to be.

Eventually, the sound of Tamatoa rummaging through his treasures tapered off and ceased. A glance over confirmed that the giant crab appeared to have finally gone to sleep. His antennae were held alertly, though, rather than laying relaxed. The crab may have been asleep, but he was only sleeping lightly. Clearly, Tamatoa didn't trust Maui any more than Maui trusted him.

Nevertheless, Maui let himself drift into an uneasy sleep.