Author's Note: I meant to update last night, but I ended up having a pretty rough evening. I co-own a small community theater company in Philly, and we closed a really successful show last night, which was fantastic. We were all celebrating at a bar near my house when my brain injury started acting up (it does that when I overdo, and if any of you are in theater, you know that it's pretty much all about overdoing). I ended up in bed with a throbbing migraine and only partial vision in both eyes by ten o'clock. I spent the time trying to read through all your nice comments and messages on my phone. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to leave a note or a thought about the story; that was lovely of you, and you really improved what ended up being an otherwise painful and stressful night. Please forgive me if there are any typos in any of the responses I wrote to you.

But enough of that, let's have some more story. :)

Chapter One

A few hours later, Moana rushed down to her canoe with a sack of provisions slung over her shoulder, generously donated by well-wishers from the village. She was surprised to find Heihei sitting in the prow of the boat, pecking industriously at the wood and making frustrated little clucking noises every time the canoe failed to be edible.

"Heihei…" Moana gently picked the chicken up and deposited him on the beach, turning him in the direction of the island and giving him a little push. "Sorry, but you're not coming. Nothing personal, okay? You're just probably better off on the island where fewer things are going to try and eat you."

Heihei, apparently unperturbed by Moana's lack of confidence in his seafaring skills, wandered off towards the village. Moana smiled, turned back to her canoe, and then heard the sound of a familiar crutch tap-tapping down the beach in her direction.

"Dad?" She turned around again to see her father, leaning on her grandmother's old crutch, making his way towards her across the sand. He had a dark, set look on his face; one that Moana knew all too well.

She sighed.

"Dad," she mumbled, "you can't talk me out of this, okay? I have to go. It's my job, for our people, and-!"

"I know." Her father shook his head. "I'm not here to stop you, Moana…not this time."

He sank down on the sand, patting the place beside him. Hesitantly, Moana sat down where he indicated and watched his face. Shaking his head at her, he gave her a wry, soft sort of smile.

"What a chief you've become, my little minnow." He brushed her cheek with a finger, and Moana tried not to beam like the proud little kid she was inside, basking in the glow of her father's praise. "Running off to save your people…at whatever cost." His smile broadened. "Your mother and I always believed that you would do great things one day. I wish…I wish you'd never had to."

For a terrible moment, in the fading light, Moana thought her father looked much, much older than he ever had before, which was, of course, ridiculous. He was still a young man, in comparison to so many of the village elders, but something about his face had grown so tired that she could hardly bear it.

"There are days, Moana, when I wish that you hadn't been born to be the chief of our people," he went on quietly. "It's a terrible burden that we've placed on you. There are so many moments when I wish you'd been destined for something gentler, something that could have kept you safe, at home, where we could protect you. The sea has already taken three of Motunui's children this year, Moana. Please…don't let it take my daughter as well."

He looked up at her with that resigned smile still in his eyes, and Moana felt a twinge of guilt and frustration in her chest. She glared out at the waves, trying to decide if it was her, the sea, or the gods that had begun to break her father's heart. Sickeningly aware that it was at least partially her fault, Moana bit her lip and wondered what, if anything, there was to say.

"My mother," her father went on, "knew all the stories of our people by heart, but some stories I forbid her to tell lest she frighten the children and encourage us all to have nightmares."

Moana chuckled. "She told them anyway," she reminded him. "I remember once, when I was little, grandma tried to tell us the story of Maui's theft of Te Fiti's heart, and you-"

"No she didn't," interrupted her father, holding up a hand. "Not all of them. There are some that even you never heard. The story of Rarohenga, for instance."

"Dad?" Moana stared. "You know something about it?"

Her father shrugged.

"I mean," Moana went on eagerly, "I know the basics, right? Rarohenga is the underworld; the place where the spirits of the dead go. It's supposed to be a terrible place, full of all the monsters that people have stopped believing in, in the mortal world, and-!"

"My mother always told me," interrupted her father, "that Rarohenga was a deceptively beautiful place...bright and full of lights of many colors. It's not a place for monsters, Moana; more like the ceatures of lore and legend that no one sees on earth anymore. Or, maybe, that's just what your grandmother liked to imagine."

Moana's widened. "Well...that doesn't sound so bad," she murmured.

Her father shook his head. "The story goes that the underworld of Rarohenga is ruled by the beautiful goddess Hine-nui-te-po, the woman whose rage against her father first brought death into the world. Her terrible power over mortals destroys everything it touches; no human can live long in her presence. Only one mortal man has ever looked upon Hine-nui-te-po and lived."

Moana swallowed hard.

Her father's voice had taken on a sort of singsong quality not unlike that of her late could almost hear her grandmother's tones in the way her father told the story. After all, she reminded herself, no doubt his mother had told him all sorts of stories, long even before Moana was born. There was a piece of grandma Tala in her father's heart as well, and that gave Moana some courage.

"You said that one mortal man had been to Rarohenga and lived," she reminded him. "Who?"

"It was the Great Chief Mataora," said her father. "He was summoned one day by the sisters of Hine-nui-te-po, and guided to Rarohenga under their care. They protected him from the goddess's wrath, and they gave him a gift; the gift of Ta Moko; the chiseled tattoo. They carved his face with their chisels, and only once he had bled enough and had understood their and their sister's pain was he permitted to leave and go about his mortal life. He brought one of the sisters with him, Niwareka, and together they began the tradition of the moko; the tattoos which we wear in our skin, which now remind us, for the briefest time, of the pain of death, but also of the life we have lived and of the place where we come from. Your grandmother told me that every soul and spirit of the dead was covered from head to toe in the moko; a tapestry of who they had been in life."

Moana looked down at her own bare arms and midriff, frowning thoughtfully to herself.

"So...if I'm going to sneak into Rarohenga," she mused aloud, "I'm not going to get in looking like this, right? I guess there isn't' any way I could get away with some really good body paint..."

I have no idea, she thought to herself, how I'm even going to find Rarohenga. Aren't we maybe getting a little ahead of ourselves, here?

"Your mother and I have been waiting for the right time to begin your moko," her father was saying. "Admittedly, we'd planned on waiting until you turned twenty-one, but...as Chief of our people, you really should have started on them some years ago."

Moana thought of chisels, and of poor Chief Mataora with his face bleeding from a dozen wounds as the sisters of Hine-nui-te-po looked on and smiled their terrible smiles.

"Yup," she sighed. "You're absolutely right, Dad; that is definitely a nightmare-inducing story. Good thing I probably won't need to sleep for a while. A real wayfinder never sleeps, or so they say. Ha...haha…"

Moana's father got to his feet.

"I'll go with you," he told her.

Moana nodded and winced. "This is gonna hurt a lot, right? No, you know what, don't answer that. It's probably fine. Yeah. It's not like I haven't seen it done a hundred times. Piece...piece of cake."

She sucked in a deep breath, and followed her father as he headed back towards the village.

Behind her, the sea sparkled, treacherous and serene, dangerous and promising, as Moana hurried to meet the next little part of her fate.

Author's End Note: I'm playing havok with Maori lore again.

This chapter was inspired quite a bit by my own father. I thought of him a lot while writing it. I remember years ago, when he told me that the hardest thing about parenting was loving too much, and that if you love someone, that means you're going to be afraid. I have to admit, I do sympathize quite a bit with Moana's Dad in the movie. Maybe it's just because I'm getting so damn old.

Next chapter, we're going to see more of Maui's side of the story. I'm looking forward to that. First, though, it's time for me to get some work done...