Across the sea on a bright sunny day with no clouds in the sky, a regatta of fourteen ships, glided over the waves that bumped under the hull. The passengers of these ships did not wear the exact clothing of those seen in recent times, but of something more ancient like leaves. Their leader had muscles gained from constant voyaging, with colorful plants, a headdress made to match the phoenix red of his skirt and his name was Matai Vasa. Through the wind and through rain, through the night and through the setting suns they worked and frolicked about searching for an island that could sustain life. After a possible amount of forty days and forty nights, they found one. It was Motunui and they were the ones who built the houses, created the baskets and sown their own clothes. And later, Matai Vasa was placing his ceremonial necklace on the neck of a familiar looking young man who pushed his large boat off the beach and into the beautiful red, purple and yellow haze of the sunset to find another island.
When Moana and the trio came out of that vision, an epiphany that was as strong as a bolt of lightning came into their heads. Could it be possible that the young man was Moana's father and that Matai Vasa was the grandfather who died before she was born? The fading of the torches seemed to dim that thought, but Moana had learned something else.
"We were voyagers," her strong, quiet voice told the others. "We were voyagers! Explorers! Navigators! Sailors!'
Those four similar words echoed all over the cave and rung into the ears of Grandmother Tala. Moana followed the echoes of her voice all the way out into the cave and sat down next to her grandmother on her right side. The girl had many questions to ask.
"What made us stop? Was that chief I saw my grandfather? Are there any other tribes out there?"
Tala smiled and answered the first two.
"Well, that was indeed my husband, a fine strong man who had better morals than our son…and it is true that there are other tribes waiting to be found…but…"
Her eyes narrowed and her smile frowned, turning into a glare of injustice committed.
"Maui!"
In her mind's eye, she could see the demigod gazing at the green glowing heart with evil, greedy eyes.
"When he took the heart of Te Fiti for his own selfish purposes, darkness fell, Te Kā was born, monsters lurked and boats stopped coming back. In order to protect our people, your father and a reasonable number of the ancient chiefs forbid voyaging…and now, we have forgotten who we used to be…blinded by complacency."
By now, Sora, Donald and Goofy were outside, hearing her story.
"Darkness…has continued to spread into our hearts, chasing the fish away from this place and draining the life from one island after the other."
Sora's eyes widened at the pitch black bloodlines that Tala had led them to down the hill. They looked like black fingers of slime, aiming to consume the island in the shapes of fames. Could it be possible that the Heartless had returned, consuming all of the worlds until there was nothing left? No way. Kingdom Hearts had been closed long ago, no thanks to the power of light, love and friendship.
Moana could also see that the black lines of wickedness had also stained the bushes and the tree barks. The memory of the diseased coconut was starting to inform her that her only home was on the verge of destruction without something to bring balance in the way of nature.
"But," Tala continued, opening her blue and white locket held by a string of white pearls. "One day, someone will have the courage to leave the reef, find Maui and…"
She placed the very object Moana least expected to see the most in the palm of her left hand: the very same oval jade she had found twelve years ago. Sora and his amigos looked over Moana's right shoulder for a closer inspection.
"restore the heart of Te Fiti."
"Where did you find this?"
"I saw you placing it in one of the pots back home for safe keeping on the day you found it," Tala reflected. "I was curious, so when I looked in the pot and saw what it was, I thought that I could be the one to restore the heart. But my age could not take me too far…so now that I have entrusted this in your hands, you are worthy of the strength, stamina and courage to cross the great ocean."
"And us?" Sora placed his right hand on his crown shaped pendant.
"You will help to guide Moana and assist her when she needs you the most."
"Don't you mean act as her bodyguards, escorts, guardians?"
"Exactly," Tala sighed in relief. "That key you hold, is said to lock the hearts of many worlds and to use it to protect the worlds from its enemies."
"You know about the Keyblade?"
Sora had met many people who were already familiar with the Keyblade, but how Tala knew about it was a question that she immediately answered.
"Indeed, I have seen many things that the other villagers have not. That is why I am very much of an outcast from them. I have moved on with my husband's passing long ago."
"And is Moana worthy of finding this…Maui?"
"Indeed. Take a look at the ocean and we shall see if I am correct."
With a second-quick sparkle of white forming the swirl of Te Fiti's heart, a body of water came up high above the level of their heads. Moana, immersed by the memory of her first encounter, remembered how it appeared to be a still wave, which it did and hovered over the four in a friendly way.
"I remember now, but I thought it was a dream."
And that was what she said when it twirled and went back under, creating a geyser that shot twenty feet of water into the air. Moana was still and amazed, her grandmother just smiled with both hands on her cane in front of her, but Goofy, who sensed that some of the water was directly toward them, summoned the shield in his right and used it as an umbrella over himself, Donald and Sora. While the water stained Sora's knees, Moana had found herself soaking wet from the common body of the water spilling onto her. In a second, she was drenched and looking like she had come out of a sun shower.
"You are not worthy," Grandmother Tala muttered in a voice that contrasted with her cheerful exterior.
But Moana just giggled it off and shook her hair wilding, forcing Goofy to use his shield again to prevent the drops from getting onto his supporters. Some of them got onto his hat, but it was not long until three minutes into the night when Tala aimed her cane at a constellation of stars resembling an upside question mark with no dot at the bottom (or in this case top).
"Our ancestors believe that Maui lies there at the bottom of his hook."
Then she lowered the cane, her expression dead serious on the intent of saving her island.
"Follow it and you will find him."
Nevertheless, Moana was pessimistic with her role.
"But how can I? I don't think I can even make it past the reef."
"You made it all the past to help me, Don and Goof," Sora said. "So why shouldn't you. We'll be there to help you every step of the way."
"Actually," Moana's frown turned into a smile. "I think I can convince my father just one more time."
And she shot off like a jack-rabbit to the village. Sora and the two animals were about to leave on careful footsteps when Tala felt a pain in her chest. She sat down on a nearby rock and gazed out at the hook before she began to shudder. Sora noticed this.
"Is there something wrong, madame?"
"I fear that the darkness has taken hold of my heart. It might be killing me. I am not old anymore, but I do need some rest. Will you help me back to my domain?"
Sora, ever the helpful saint, wrapped his right arm around Tala's left and Goofy and Donald supported her right side back to the maota tofa.
At the fale fono, Tui and Sina had a formed a meeting with the villagers regarding the mystery of the problems surrounding the lack of fish, whether it be due to tides or the population of fish being shorted, the latter which seemed unlikely. Evidence in the form of a pile of black branches dried, dead coconuts and partially sickened leaves. The villagers were at fever point of hysteria when Moana, ran up the steps into the fono, with an excited pace and speed, shouting the news and rushing into the center of the room, holding the heart of Te Fiti in her right hand.
"We can stop the darkness and save our island in the boats I found in the cavern behind the waterfall!"
The others wondered with expressions of confusion, disbelief and other emotions that did not sound too positive. If she was telling the truth, their entire world was now feeling too big for them to comprehend.
"We can take them to find Maui and make him restore the heart of Te Fiti. Our ancestors were voyager, explorers, navigators, wayfinders, you decide what the name should be. We can do it once we can do it again!"
The villagers and Sina, with their confused, frightened looks, turned to Tui, whose own face was the exact opposite of Moana's.
"That is utter and complete nonsense! Everybody knows that we can only solve our problems here."
"And I want to help our people! You always said we should help our people, so why can't we? We cannot always put complacency before trying something new."
Tui gritted his teeth, muttering.
"I should have burned those damned boats a long time ago."
Unfortunately, Moana heard him.
"But we have to find Maui and restore the heart! I've even found three people from the sky?"
The natives gasped and ooed in mixed emotions of discovery and foreigners within their lands, but at the same time, some saw them as threats, maybe even the ones responsible for their island's dying nature.
"Are they gods?" asked a woman in orange.
"Well they did come from the sky in a pillar of smoke I saw this afternoon," Moana replied.
"That could have been just a meteor," her husband in a red skirt added in skepticism. "I know because I saw it too."
"Me as well!" shouted a burly man in white.
"Maybe if I can show you, I can present to you Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy Goof and they will help us to restore the heart!"
Tui had enough. He was now raising the volume of his voice up to an extremely high decibel.
"THERE IS NO HEART! THIS! IS NOTHING MORE! THAN A PRICELESS GEMSTONE!"
Then in a more indoor voice he concluded.
"Maybe even a jade carving."
Before Moana could let out another argument of defiance, an elderly man in a white skirt that matched the color of his hair came rushing into the fono, delivering his news in Tahitian.
"Chief Tui, it is your mother. Some strangers came and helped her into the house, but no sooner after that she collapsed. You and your family should check up on her, the doctors are already there."
Everybody in the fale fono froze and felt a newfound wave of sympathy wash over their views of the former chieftess who they had recently been seeing as the Polynesian equivalent of a village crazy lady. Now as seemed to them, she was on the brink of her death throes. Moana and Sina's feelings were just about as mutual as Tui: a sense of dread meaning that the worst was yet to come.
Pulling back the curtains of the maota tofa, Moana could see her grandmother lying in a patterned blanket with six rugs underneath, with three dimly lit candles on her right and eight more on her left where Sora, Donald and Goofy were, worried for her as were the young medicine man and his female assistant on the right. Both were locked in hushed whispers that Moana could not hear. Even with ten additional candles on the left side wall, the room was not too bright, but it was enough for them to see a sorry sight that within the next few minutes…she was dying.
Moana and her parents rushed over, noticing Sora, Donald and Goofy. Tui was astounded by their odd clothes and intelligent beings in the shape of a dog and a duck and so was Sina. Perhaps Moana had been telling the truth after all about these sky-gods who fell out in a pillar of fire and smoke. Being the chief of high position, Tui walked up to Sora.
"Are you the gods my daughter spoke about?"
"I would not say 'gods'," Sora said, remaining respectful in the presence of a dying woman. "But she says that the darkness in her heart is killing her. It's the truth."
Tui was not sure what to believe, he turned to his medicine man and his assistant, asking them.
"What is wrong with her?'
"The stranger may be correct," said the assistant. "He may be seeing things that we do not…he may be right about the darkness."
As Tui and Sina continued to speak with them, Moana kneeled in front of Tala and so did Sora and his companions. The girl held the old woman's hands in desperation, wishing that she had more time to live and see the result of her great adventure that Tala herself would instill onto her.
"Go…" came the almost inaudible whisper of her grandmother.
But now, Moana could only feel tears in her eyes. She began to sob in despair. It was too soon for her to let go of the one who truly, deeply understood her. Too soon for her to share her stories before she left. Too soon for her to see what the future could bring once she moved on. Too late for her to restore the heart of Te Fiti once she had ascended into the country of the ancestors.
"Grandmother…I won't leave you."
"You must," the old woman's face was just about as sad as hers and her voice was desperate enough to know that her duty and her destiny needed to be fulfilled.
"The ocean chose you for a reason."
Moana's tears began pouring down her cheek as she brought her head closer to Tala's darkness stained heart, her right ear exposed to hear what her grandmother had to say. Tala's face was strong and not ready to pass away before she could give her last words.
"Take the Keyblader and his allies, follow the fish hook and when you find Maui, grab him by his ears and say…'I am Moana Waialiki of Motunui, you will board my boat, sail across the sea and restore the heart of Te Fiti.'"
As she spoke, Tala's frail, shuddering hands released her white and blue locket, placing the heart of Te Fiti inside of it and shutting it very tightly. Moana was touched by this gesture and so was Sora, wiping away a tear from his right eye with the black of his gloved hand from that side. Goofy wanted to spill tears too, but Donald would not let him do so until after they were gone from sight.
"I love you, grandmother."
"And I will always be with you Moana, if not body, then in spirit."
Clutching the locket to her heart, Moana quelled her sobs, confident that whatever her grandmother would say, would be true. All she needed in addition of Sora and his allies, was the spirit of Tala to guide her. Backing slowly away out of the tofa, Moana now knew her path and she had to follow it. Before following her out the door, Sora slowly waved his right-hand goodbye to Tala and she waved in return. Donald and Goofy did the same and stopped just as Sora was out into the open.
With the pendant now hanging around her neck as a reminder of her soon-to-be-deceased grandmother, Moana rushed into the food storage hut, placing three bananas, five stones and some string to light them for a fire into a basket. Sora, Donald and Goofy were already helping her, each with a basket of their own, when she looked to see the desperate figure of Sina standing before her in the doorway. Her face could tell that she was leaving and Moana was not to sure if her mother would be angry at her for leaving and all she said in return was.
"Please don't tell father I'm leaving, I would not want him to lose his temper over me."
"He won't," Sina said, her voice firm and reliable on her daughter.
She sat down in front of Moana and helped her to load four peaches and eleven sticks into a brown bowl, then with a pained expression on her face, she handed a bag to her daughter who smiled so big, it would have gone against her cheeks. After hugging her daughter one last time and watching her leave with three claimed-to-be-gods-from-the-sky, bag of food and supplies in tow, she then rushed over to the chicken coop where Pua was sleeping with Hei-Hei, instructing them to follow Moana and watch over her, uncertain if she could her fate of her only daughter in the hands of the three "gods".
They followed her without anyone else noticing by the time Moana reached the cavern. With Goofy, Donald and Sora having gone back to use the Gummi ship as a lifeboat, Moana was left alone, searching for the one boat that would suit her the best. Remembering the twenty-five-foot boat with the red swirl on its mast, the voices inside her head told her that it would be appropriate to take that one since it seemed to resemble the swirl on the heart of Te Fiti. Unbeknownst to Moana, Pua and Hei-Hei had leaped into the boat just after she finished loading the food into the hull, quietly making themselves comfortable while Moana pulled the ropes in to furl the sail and with strong feet, she was ready to bring her chosen boat back into the water where it rightfully belonged.
The boat moved by an inch, then even further as Moana held up the hull to her breasts with both hands under it and just as the bow settled into the water, she raced alongside the starboard stern and made it off the logs embedded in the sand as the boat, having stayed out of water for only the gods knew how long, was back to serving its old purpose: sailing. It sailed under the waterfall, soaking the boat and getting Moana wet but she did not care, she had more important matters at hand.
She started to look for the three off-worlders. They had already pushed the Gummi ship into the sea from where they had left it and went to look for Moana and it was thankful of Goofy and Donald that Sora's sharp eyes detected a raft on the far-right side nearly half-a-mile away from them. Using a little bit of the engine's remaining power, they sped towards the raft with Goofy preparing the grappling hook to be attached to Moana's raft. And then something else came into Moana's view…
A blue glowing manta ray.
It swooped under the raft, its size as large as the boat itself and that was when Moana realized that her grandmother's last word proved to be true, just as they always were. Sora could see the manta ray as well and was convinced that Moana had a spirit animal like a Chirithy to guide her every step.
"Which way?" he asked her once they reached Moana's boat.
Moana looked at the manta ray that was her grandmother. She was heading north, in the very direction of Maui's fish hook, represented by the stars.
"North. Towards that fish hook."
That being said, Goofy swung the grappling hook three times above his head and Moana placed it onto the right skid on the starboard side, Moana unfurled the sail. Then, jumping over one large wave after the other, Moana, Sora, Donald and Goofy set off into the calm, starry night.