Chapter 12: Storytelling
•"Silly little Demigoddess, so naive are you, so foolish,"
Moana sat up from her restless sleep, feeling the waves angrily jostle her back and forth as a beautiful woman with fire red hair rose from the boiling sea. But her face wasn't quite right. It was clenched in permanent anguish, like a knife was being consistently plunged into her heart, "stand up and face me girl!"
"Who are you!" Moana cried, only to stumble into the mast the minute she got to her feet, "what have you done with Maui?"
"Maui? Ha! That little cockroach isn't foolish enough to enter my lair, not after what he did. He'll abandoned you, child. Just like he did me,"
"Maui wouldn't abandon me," Moana spat, wobbling where she stood as the fiery woman laughed deeply and lifted the canoe up in her red glowing hand,
"Wouldn't he though? Silly girl, he's nothing but a coward and a thief. Pfft, love. He doesn't know a single thing about it,"
"Is that because he didn't love you?" Moana asked, holding onto the mast of her canoe tightly as her dark curls whipped around her face, "you're Roha, aren't you? Goddess of the underworld?"
"Foolish! Insolent little snip!" The woman raged, "you don't know anything about love. No more then he does! Leaving your people to suffer, while you and he sail across the world without a care. So tell me, Moana, what do you know of love?"
Moana wanted to come back with something smart. She wanted to spout off everything she knew about love. But no words escaped her throat as Roha laughed, "that's what I thought. You're still only a child...perhaps you can be saved. But Maui is no friend to me, and mark my words if he steps foot into my lair I'll incinerate him on the spot!"
Roha's bright hair exploded with fire as Moana winced from the heat, crying out as she was tossed from the goddesses hand and plummeted down, down towards the raging ocean.•
Moana's eyes snapped open from the dream, as cool ocean water engulfed her. Holding her breath and blinking dazedly, the young Wayfinder swam back up to the dark shadow of the canoe. Gasping as her face touched the air, Moana grasped onto the canoe's balancer as she breathed heavily for a moment. It was all just a dream,
'More like a nightmare,' Moana thought to herself, grunting as she hauled her wet form back up onto the canoe, frowning slightly as she looked around. Maui was not on board with her. Panic rising up from her gut, and the nightmare coming to mind, Moana whipped around in every direction. The canoe was no longer on open water. Maui had tied up the sail, and had hooked the mounting rope onto a little beach. It was barely big enough for one person and a coconut tree, and a few paces away around a jetty of tall rocks, Moana could hear loud snores.
Sighing in relief and plopping back down onto her haunches, Moana ran two hands through her thick, damp curls. Maui was still with her...Roha was wrong. And yet, she still felt the small tug of sadness in her gut. Grunting slightly, the Wayfinder picked up her abandoned oar and felt the carved autograph with her thumb. Sina used to tell stories about how she and Tui fell in love. Moana remembered imagining it like the story of Sina and the Eel. How her brave father killed the eel creature like Maui did so long ago, and how her mother was beautiful enough to gain the love of a monster from the sea.
Sina always described 'love' as something you felt inside. It's not a feeling that can really be described, but experienced. Moana had felt some types of love before, like for Pua, or Sina or Tui. And especially from Grandma Tala. But Moana had never felt...love love. Rohe was right about that part. Moana didn't know what it meant to love someone else. But what did that make her and Maui?
Glancing down at the oar again, Moana smiled and chuckled at the thought of their adventure to Tē Fiti. They had been a team then, working together so seamlessly. And then Maui left, and Moana felt as though her entire world was collapsing,
"But he came back," Moana croaked, staring out at the horizon...the line where the sky met the sea, "he always comes back,"
Sitting back on her hands, Moana let a deep sigh escape her throat, only for it to hitch as a noise caught her attention. It practically made the canoe rattle, and happened again, and again, and again. Crawling forward, Moana jumped back with a loud yelp as a head of bright red and blue feathers popped from the darkness,
"H-Hei-Hei?" Moana blinked and took hold of the chicken, pulling him into her lap as he whipped his head around, "how did you get here?"
"I may have gone back to your island last night..."
"What?" Moana stated at Maui, who was standing by the rock where he had been sleeping,
"Just checking to see if Rehua was keeping his word,"
"Is he?"
"So far," Maui answered, hopping onto the canoe and jostling it, "looks like Drumstick here decided to play stowaway,"
"What does it look like? My island I mean?"
"It's...pretty quiet, especially without you there guiding everyone around. I met your mom too, by the way. Sina right?"
Moana immediately flushed red at the thought of Maui meeting her parents. Thank the gods Tui wasn't alive to see it, he'd be churning about in the Underworld right about now, "yeah, she asked who I was, asked about you, told me to protect you. Ya'know, usual mom stuff,"
Maui shrugged slightly and untied the canoe, using his foot to push off the Little Rock island, and pulling the sheet to catch the breeze,
"I miss her a lot," Moana admitted quietly, holding Hei-Hei close to her chest and squeezing him slightly,
"She misses you too, Curly," Maui said, though he stopped talking suddenly, like he wanted to say something else, but was hesitating,
"What is it Maui?"
"It's nothing. I just...think you're pretty lucky to have such a great mom. You already know what my mom did to me,"
"Maui, have you ever thought about going back?" Moana lifted her head and stoked Hei-Hei quietly as she watched her favorite demigod flawlessly Wayfind out of the small circle of coral which protected the little island, "you know, showing her how great a person you've become?"
"I tried that decades ago," Maui answered, smacking the ocean with a hand, only to have it snack him back. No fight insued however as Maui locked his eyes determinedly forward, "she didn't want me when she threw me into the sea, and she didn't want me when I came back,"
"W-what happened? When you went back I mean,"
Maui didn't say anything, just stared out at the open ocean before sighing heavily and shaking his head,
"I went back the minute I became a Demigod. I sailed across the sea to my home island. I thought my mom would be proud of me, that she would be proud of what I had become. But...I guess time passed and I hadn't even realized it," Maui seemed to frown even deeper as he steered towards the sun, "I got back, and found that I had already been replaced. So I left, and never even thought about going back,"
"Oh," Moana looked at her legs and exhaled deeply, "I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't get along with my dad a lot of the times, not until I forced him to listen. But, I can't imagine-"
"It's alright, Curly, really," Maui plopped down onto his haunches and adjusted the leaves of his lavalava, "it never really stops hurting. Not even for a Demigod,"
"Is that why Rohe is still angry at you? Because gods hold serious grudges?"
"Yep. Gods are pretty protective of their clouds up there. Funny thing? I used to want a cloud,"
"Really?" Moana smiled crookedly, imagining someone like Maui as a full god, "I'm pretty sure the world would explode,"
"Hey, watch it Princess. I can still smite you,"
Moana giggled slightly and sighed, watching the horizon where the sun was growing larger and brighter by the minute,
"What do you think is going to happen down there?"
"Nothing good," Maui stated, "we just need to keep on our toes, and keep Drumstick here out of trouble,"
The chicken gave a cluck in reply as Moana stroked his feathers and looked towards the horizon. Hopefully Rohe wasn't as furious as she was in the nightmare.