Author's Note: Ugh, I ended up going another couple of days without updating. I really am sorry. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of a new show, it's always like this. This will calm down again soon enough, but getting the process started is a full-time job all its own!
We had our first readthrough tonight, and it went VERY well. I'm extremely pleased.
We'll see how it goes from here on out.
Oh, and now…we are reaching the end of part one of our story. Are you ready? I'm not.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As the shaking and rumbling of the island finally stopped, Moana looked around, then down at the sea which was now even closer than it had been before. It lapped happily at the beach where the people of Motunui had once moored their fishing boats, where Moana herself had played safely, years and years ago. It hadn't been safe to play by the water's edge for months, and children had avoided the beach, but now, of course, things would be different. The sun sparkling off the waves looked as warm as Moana felt inside, and everything seemed to be right again; almost too perfect.
Well, no, she corrected herself, glancing over her shoulder at where Maui was trailing along the beach behind her. Maybe not everything is perfect.
Something, at least, was still definitely wrong with Maui. He'd been humming nervously to himself for the past five minutes, and whenever Moana turned to look at him, he was pointedly looking at something else, like the water, or the trees, or he was staring off at the horizon with ridiculously forced contemplation on his face.
Moana wondered if maybe their recent, uncomfortable lunch conversation was responsible for Maui's awkward mood. She wouldn't have blamed him. All that talk about marriage had certainly given her an unpleasant feeling in her stomach, and Maui was a guest; he shouldn't have had to sit through that sort of family argument. Moana was frankly a little embarrassed about the whole thing.
"Um, about Anahera," she said, sighing. "She's just…you know, she's a little old fashioned, I guess? She doesn't love the idea of having an unmarried female Chief, and she's had issues with my Dad for years, because he, you know, kinda raised me in his own sorta unconventional way, so she just…she takes every chance she can to come at me. I'm, uh, really sorry you had to hear all that, though. I'm not totally sure why Mom didn't shut her up. She usually does."
"Huh?" Maui gave her a distracted sort of smile. "Oh, uh, no worries. Not a big deal."
"The weird thing is," Moana went on, frowning to herself, "that even though I was never really given the choice not to be a chief, it's not like I hate it. I don't hate it. It's not like there are a ton of big dreams that I've been missing out on, or anything, it's just…um, there's a lot of pressure. Everybody kind of expects me to be the kind of chief that their fathers were, and that's…well, that's obviously not going to happen, because there's no way I'm ever going to be exactly like some nostalgic image they've got in their heads of 'the world's greatest island chief.'"
"Yeah," mumbled Maui. "That sounds tough."
Moana shot a quick sidelong look at Maui, and could tell immediately that he wasn't really listening to her. Whatever was on his mind was really holding his attention.
She just sighed.
"Honestly," she went on, more to herself and to the sea than to Maui, "if anybody was that kind of 'great Chief' of days gone by, it was my Dad. When he got hurt, though, things got even weirder for me, because he's still around…which is amazing, I definitely wouldn't have it any other way, but it's like everyone's looking to him to take over and be the chief they were really expecting and hoping for, and he…doesn't. He doesn't, and that makes everbody kind of annoyed, like, 'well, if Tui hadn't gotten injured, this whole village would be a better place,' right? I don't want Dad to feel weird and guilty about it, so…ugh." She blew out a long, frustrated breath. "Yeah, there are just a lot of expectations, and the marriage thing…that's the worst. It's like they never stop harping on it, like if I got married, settled down, had twenty kids, I'd just sort of magically turn into the person that Motunui has always needed…which doesn't make sense, really, because how could I focus on running the village if I was too busy chasing after children? I'm…honestly, I'm not even sure I really like children. Is that awful? Does it make me a bad person? No, right?"
"Um, no," said Maui. "No, you're not a bad person. You're, uh…you're a pretty great person, actually. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Not everybody has to like kids."
Oh, thought Moana, so, he is listening after all. That cheered her up a bit.
"You think so?" She nodded to herself. "Okay, okay, thanks. I'm glad to hear that…and it's not that I even hate kids, it's just, uh…well, children" n are so-"
"Sticky," said Maui simply.
Moana snapped her fingers, nodding enthusiastically.
"YES," she said, excited, "that's exactly it! Kids are sticky! They're always covered in something slimy or squishy or…yuck. It's not weird that I'm not interested in that. Not everybody has to love the idea of being a mother."
Maui just nodded thoughtfully.
Moana smiled, and Maui gave her a half-smile back.
"See," she began, "you really get me. Not a lot of people get me like you do. Maybe that's why it's so nice being with you; you don't have all these crazy expectations of what I have to be like, or what you want me to do, or who you want me to be. You just…get me. I like that. It's…it's really nice. It's such a relief, too."
Maui cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and straightened himself up.
"Moana," he began, much far too seriously. "There's, uh, something I want to tell you."
Moana blinked.
"Oh, um, sorry." She nodded. "Yeah, you mentioned that before, and here I've been rambling on and on, and on…anyway, I'm all ears, now. What did you want to talk about?"
She turned fully to face him, smiled, and prepared to listen. Whatever was bothering him, she decided, she was ready to be as supportive as possible. After all, Maui was going through some difficult changes right now, what with suddenly becoming mortal, and Moana was ready to be there for him, no matter what. They'd been adventurers together, and if anyone could even try to understand what he was going through, then Moana was sure she could be that person. It was the least she could do.
"Moana," mumbled Moana, staring abruptly and directly into her eyes with an intensity that totally took her aback, "I'm…well, listen; you know I'm crazy about you, right?"
Moana had to think about that one for several seconds, and when it finally sunk in, she wasn't sure what to say. Her jaw dropped.
"I…you wh-wh-whaaaaaaat?" She just stared. "What do you mean, c-crazy?"
"I mean," said Maui quickly, "that, uh, you're right. I mean, we get each other, just like you said. We're a great team. We're a good match."
"Match," muttered Moana helplessly, feeling like reality was starting to get away from her.
"You're someone super…special, super different, and it drives me nuts," Maui went on, getting more and more determined as he went, apparently unable to stop now that he'd started down this road to confession. "I've never, ever met anyone like you before, not in thousands upon thousands of years, Moana, and that's insane; it's a big deal. That's…that's incredible, and I don't think I'll ever meet anyone like you again, and…I mean, that's gotta mean something, right?"
"Uh," mumbled Moana, swallowing hard. "Y-yeah, I guess?"
"Yeah," agreed Maui, nodding. "There's some kinda fate, here, I know it, and trust me, I know a lot about fate, and trying to escape it. It's no good. I try not to put too much stock in that stuff, but it's still true. You and I…we 're meant to matter to each other."
Moana chewed on her lip while her head spun gently.
"Right?" Maui was a little desperate too, now, searching Moana's face with his eyes, waiting for some kind of confirmation. "Don't you think we should be…? Uh, you don't look very happy about this. You're not, are you? You're…you're not. Oh."
Moana wasn't sure what she felt, but it definitely wasn't what she'd call 'happy.'
For a long time, they stood and gazed at each other in one of the most awkward silences Moana had ever experienced.
"You, uh, told the ocean," muttered Maui eventually, "that you cared."
"I do care!" Moana heard her voice squeak a little as she said it. "Of course, I care! Why would you think I don't care? I care! I care a lot!"
"Yeah?" Maui looked a bit more hopeful. "Then…"
"It's just…" Moana wasn't sure how to put it. "Maui, I don't…I don't know."
"What? What don't you know?" Maui's eyes had gone wild, and Moana's heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn't figure out if she was excited, scared, thrilled, or some horrifying combination of all of the above.
He's crazy about me, she thought, hoping that reiterating the point to herself would help the feelings and sensations all begin to make sense, but it didn't. She thought back on everything she knew about love, on how love was supposed to look and feel. Everything she'd heard from the old stories of romance told her that love was supposed to be a passionate, overpowering emotion; something that made your heart flutter and your spirits soar every time you saw or spoke to the person you'd fallen in love with. Love was a breathtaking, extreme sport, sort of like sailing or like flying for the first time; fascinating, exhilarating, endlessly magical.
Is that, she asked herself, how I feel about Maui?
She looked at him, at his strained, hopeful face with a lopsided, uncertain half-smile on it, and she felt…safe. She felt comfortable and careless, but not passionate or fascinated. Maui was a person who understood her, who understood her so well that she didn't even have to think about how well he understood her; they just made sense to each other, and they had a lot of the same stuff inside them…but maybe, just maybe, she wasn't in love with him.
It didn't feel much like love was supposed to feel, she realized. It didn't feel breathless…or at least, it hadn't until a few moments ago. Now, unfortunately, it felt more like panic than like romance.
"What," repeated Maui seriously, "don't you know, Moana?"
"I don't know," she whispered, "how I feel."
Maui's face fell.
He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again, and took a deep breath.
"Oh," he muttered. "Well, uh…all right, then. If you don't know, then I guess you don't, uh, feel the same way, so…man, I feel like an idiot right now. Been a few hundred years since I last tried to read the signals, and I'm way out of practice. I just thought…nevermind, forget it. I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry." Moana just shook her head.
Maui shrugged. "Okay."
Again, they lapsed into silence, and Moana was deeply sorry, too, although she wasn't sure what exactly she was sorry about. Everything had stopped feeling warm and magical, and now it all felt awful again. She was almost angry, maybe with him, maybe just sort of vaguely angry at the way things had taken a turn for the extremely weird.
"You've…been in love before," she began carefully. "Maui, what does it-?"
"No," interrupted Maui curtly. "I haven't. I don't think so."
"I don't know what it feels like to be in love," Moana explained, intending it to be some kind of lame apology, although even she had to admit that it didn't sound like anything when she heard herself say it.
"Yeah," mumbled Maui, turning away from her. "I know. I heard you the first time."
He looked so genuinely dejected that it tugged painfully at Moana's heartstrings. She reached out, put a hand on his back out of a strong instinct to comfort him, and he jerked away from her.
"I gotta go," he muttered.
"What?" Moana blinked. "Wait, where are you going? I thought you were going to stay in the village. You said you'd stay for my birthday, and I..."
Maui raised an eyebrow at her.
"I want you to stay," mumbled Moana helplessly.
Maui just looked confused.
"I do," Moana insisted quickly, "I want you to stay."
"Make up your mind," sneered Maui. "What do you want? Do you want me here, or-?"
"I care about you," interrupted Moana, "I just…I just don't know if I have, uh…feelings. I don't know how to explain it. I never thought-!"
Maui's face shut down.
"Forget it," he said darkly. "I'm done making a fool of myself. It was a long shot anyway. Shouldn't have gotten my hopes up."
"Maui," began Moana.
"Goodbye, Moana." He paused for a moment, then added quietly, "I'm sorry I spoiled the happy ending."
Then, holding his hook above his head, he swung it and transformed himself into a hawk, launching himself from the beach and taking off into the sky before Moana could rally herself to reach out and stop him.
"Please," she whispered, "Maui, please, come back…"
It was already too late. He was too far away to have heard her, even if she'd cried out.
As she watched him disappearing into the distance, she stood alone at the water's edge and felt oddly guilty and betrayed.
Love, she decided, was much more complicated than she'd ever truly understood…and now, at this moment, she hated it with all of her heart.
That felt right, she decided. That was true, something she understood. Love was a mess, and, at this moment, there certainly didn't seem to be anything wonderful or magical about it.
Maybe the storytellers had lied.
Author's End Note: Poor Maui. He really has come a long way. He's matured a great deal and learned a lot about himself, but I think the combination of losing his immortality and getting rejected was really too much for him, and we're seeing his more childish side coming to the surface again. Stress can bring out the worst in all of us, I suppose. I know it brings out my worst.
I do ask, although I'm sure this part of the story wasn't exactly what you were hoping for, that you please keep your comments polite and courteous. Thank you so much. :)
