I do not own the rights to Moana.
Voyager
They are sentencing our people to death.
What do we know about living on land? Our people are voyagers, hopping from island to island, never settling down and calling one home. The Chief says that we will learn, that it will be safer than sailing into the unknown and being eaten by monsters.
He has ordered all of the boats to be destroyed and for us to stay on the island, never to leave. He is naïve to think that the monsters and the darkness will not reach our shores. Maybe not now, but they will eventually, and our people will be trapped without our boats.
They will die. For small fishing boats were not built to withstand traveling the ocean and waves. I should know, because I'm the one who builds them.
Not just them, but the larger ones too. I cannot bare to see them all go up in smoke, and neither can the other builders, along with some of the other villagers. We hide the few we can manage in a secret cave. They were built to withstand giant waves that could destroy whole villages with one blow, and storms that could last for days. Surely they could survive long enough until our people start to voyage again.
I go to check on them in secret, to make sure they are still there. I go to touch and feel them, bang the drum to wake the magic within them to remind myself of the past. I think the boats enjoy it too, remembering when they were free to sail waters with no boundaries instead of being trapped here. The magic also protects them from aging too much. How can my people voyage once more if they don't have decent ships that can carry them? They will must certainly not have my skills, the Chief has seen to that. Already the next generation of shipbuilders are forgetting the old ways, content with their small fishing boats.
One day I caught a small boy following me, the son of the chief. I debate whether or not to tell. What would his father do if he knew the truth? But I see the light in his eyes. If our people are to use the boats, they will have to know they are here and how to awaken them. I will not be around forever.
I show him and see his eyes grow wide at the hidden boats, and for the first time in a long time, my heart is filled with hope. I tell him to bang the drum, and the magic surrounds him, and I can see the eagerness in his eyes to go sailing once more.
We may be stuck on land for now, but we won't always be. Someday the monsters will be gone, and we will return to the ocean.
And we will have the finest boats to do so.
Author's Note
I'd like to thank Menamai for the review. I agree, one small scene to either show what was happening back on the island, or maybe Maui and Moana coming across an island or two covered in the darkness, just to remind them and us of the importance of their mission. They could have made it like the part in Mulan where one moment they're singing happily about fighting for girls, and the next they come across a burned out village reminding them why they're really fighting. Talk about a mood killer. The movie could have done something similar.
This was just a little one-shot exploring the POV of one of the shipbuilders. I wondered what was going through their mind upon learning they'd have to give up voyaging, and after spending their life building boats to do so. Also, why were the boats sealed up and not burned like Tui thought? How exactly did they last 1,000 years and still be in such good condition? What about banging the drum? How did Gramma Tala know if they were sealed up?
Next chapter was originally supposed to be Maui's until I came up with a one-shot for Te Ka/Te Fiti. Oops. It'll just be a bit later now.