Author's Note: Oof, so a few of you have asked me about running a theater company, and what that's like (thanks to anyone who has expressed interest!)

Well, this morning, one of my regular actresses called me, elated, sobbing tears of joy.

"Mercy," she announced, "I'm going to have a baby! I can't audition for Much Ado About Nothing. Sorry!"

Now, don't' get me wrong; I'm genuinely happy for her, but I had kinda planned on having her play a major role in this upcoming show…which auditions in just a little over a week. Subsequently, I'm spending my evening alternating between job applications and sending out new audition notices.

And now, back to our story.

Chapter Twenty-One

Back in the island cave, Moana was starting to get desperate.

For maybe the hundredth time, she was preparing to jump down into the hole that led into the realm of the dead. This time, though, she was taking drastic action against the ocean. She'd found the largest rock she could successfully carry, and had tied it to one of her ankles. Theoretically, she decided, if she jumped into the hole carrying the rock, and then dropped it, it's weight would drag her down fast and hard enough that the ocean might not be able to force her back up to the surface in time. She knew it was a long shot, and she was very aware that, with a rock tied to her leg, she wouldn't be able to run or swim for it if something else, like one of the Turehu, or a giant Moana-eating crab came after her, but there didn't seem to be a lot of other options at this point.

She could feel the ocean watching her as she took a deep breath, steeling herself for the jump. The ocean didn't seem any happier than Moana felt.

"I wouldn't have to do this," she reminded it, "if you'd just be reasonable and let me go down there the regular way, okay? Don't look at me like that; this wasn't exactly my favorite idea either. Ugh. Please, just…please don't get in the way this time. Okay. Here goes."

Moana shut her eyes and fell off the ledge into the hole, clutching the rock against her chest. The descent was definitely faster this time, and it felt much less controlled.

Before she had a chance to triumph too much, however, the ocean scooped her up and blasted her back to the surface, snapping the rope that tied the rock to her ankle. It sent the rock up after her a few seconds later, and that landed with a crunch on the cave floor beside her, leaving Moana feeling completely deflated and out of ideas.

"AAAGGHHHHHH." Flinging her arms out on either side in a gesture of absolute disgust and abandon, she stared down the hole at the ocean, who was poking it's 'head' ever-so-hesitantly up over the ledge at her.

"Look," she sighed, completely exasperated. "You're not helping. You're not helping at all. I know that you want to make things right, that you're worried about me getting hurt…I get it. I do, but, honestly? It's a liiiiittle late for that at this point. We're already in this mess, and you can't pretend that we're gonna get out of it by closing our eyes, uh, figuratively, in your case, and pretending it isn't happening. I AM going down there, and if you really want to apologize and to help set things right, then instead of trying to stop me, you should go with me."

The ocean stared, somehow managing to look genuinely surprised.

"If you're worried that I'm going to get hurt," Moana muttered, "or, and let's be honest with each other, here, if you're worried that maybe I'm gonna get into some kind of a jam with Hine-nui-te-po that doesn't end so well on either side, then all you have to do is stick with me and watch my back. It's like I said; we used to be a team. We can be a team again. We can't be a very effective team if we keep coming at this problem from totally different angles. I want to save Maui, you want to save me, and neither of us really wants to piss off the goddess more than we absolutely have to…so, great. That's sort of a plan. So, let's get to it."

The ocean, apparently taken aback, seemed to consider this.

"Um, I don't mean to pressure you, or anything," Moana went on, a little tense, "but…we kind of have to do this, like, now. Is that okay? Trust me…I may not know exactly what I'm doing, but I'll improvise. Everything's probably gonna be fi-AHHHHHHHHH!"

Apparently having reached a decision, the ocean suddenly reared up, gave Moana a push, and sent her careening down through the hole into Rarohenga.

Lately, Moana reflected as she tumbled through the water, it felt like she'd been doing a lot of falling. The trip from the cave to the ground below didn't feel nearly as long and harrowing as she remembered it feeling before, and she wondered if maybe she was starting to get used to the whole concept of death-defying stunts.

"Okay," she said when she landed, identifying the same rock that she'd hidden behind when she arrived in Rarohenga the first time, and trying to take her bearings from that. "Here's where you come in, ocean. Take me to Hine-nui-te-po."

The ocean hesitated, and then, all around Moana, she could feel a sort of shifting in the flow of the water. Letting her instinct guide her, she followed what felt like the gentle pushes of the ocean, urging her forward towards a menacing structure that was looming in the distance; the place her grandmother's spirit had indicated was the palace of the goddess of the dead.

As the souls of the dead drifted by her on all sides, apparently completely disinterested, Moana tried not to let herself be too creeped out by their silence, or the way there was nothing behind their eyes. She tried not to let herself think of the genuine possibility that it was already too late; that the goddess had already gotten to Maui, and that he was now one of these same lifeless spirits. She tried not to look for him in the myriad faces passing by, tried no to get momentarily desperate when she saw a broad back and a set of several tattoos that for an instant looked like they might be Maui's.

They weren't. The spirit turned around, showed its unfamiliar face, and passed on. Moana exhaled in ragged relief, squared her shoulders, and kept moving.

She wasn't all that surprised when, as she neared the entrance to the palace, she saw the great, hulking forms of two tanihwa seated there, one on other side of the massive coral-and-wood archway. They were huge, colored black, blue, and grey like the palace itself, with wickedly curved wings folded against their backs and long, slithering tongues that flicked out of their mouths every few seconds, tasting the air around them for any sign of trouble.

Moana stopped in her tracks, and felt the presence of the ocean halt beside her, the flow of water ceasing for a moment.

"Um," she whispered. "Those are new, right? Don't remember seeing them there before. Looks like security's getting a little tighter around here. I guess Maui and my escape kind of shook things up. People probably don't get out of Rarohenga all that often. I'm guessing most of them don't try."

As Moana watched, a heavily-tattooed, light-haired woman with incredibly pale skin, like all the surrounding spirits, approached the entrance to the palace, carrying a laden sack over her shoulder. She stopped in front of the two taniwha, and they each turned, licked her gently with their snake-like tongues, and then sat back again, losing interest in her almost immediately. Unhindered, the woman passed through into the palace.

Moana frowned.

"Okay," she mumbled. "So, I'm gonna have to pass a lizard smell test. Just great."

Unexpectedly, the white sand on the ground around her feet suddenly began to swirl, and then a large clump of it hit Moana squarely in the face.

"H-hey!" She coughed, spluttered, and batted at the sand, but it continued to float up and to attach itself to her, coating her arms, legs, face and midriff until every visible part of her body was the same color as the essentially colorless sand.

Moana glanced down at her arm, turned it over, and was impressed by the transformation. She was, herself, now almost as pale as a ghost.

"That's a good idea," she told the ocean, "but it's not enough. I can't just look, like a spirit, I need to smell like one too, if I don't want to get eaten or fried alive. I need something else. I need…"

Moana tried picturing exactly what the light-haired woman had looked like, what she'd been carrying, the way she'd moved, searching for anything that might be the key to getting inside the palace. She thought about the red and gold woven robes the woman had over her shoulders, and abruptly remembered the way her Grandma's spirit had tried to pass off her own cloak when they'd last met in the underworld.

"The robes," murmured Moana. "I need those robes!"

Beside her, the water shifted restlessly.

"You know the ones I'm talking about," insisted Moana. "The ones that all the Turehu wear. Actually, I probably need the robes off one of the actual Turehu…you know, so I can be sure to smell like a dead person."

She looked around, but none of the Turehu were anywhere to be seen.

"Maui said," she reminded herself, "that they're the only ones who can get freely in and out of Rarohenga. That's probably why the taniwha don't challenge them. They do all of Hine-nui-te-po's errands, and they bring Maui his food. Oh, so if that was one of them bringing breakfast, then…then that means he's definitely still alive!"

Moana sagged with relief, and she suddenly couldn't keep from smiling.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath, her determination renewed by the certain knowledge that it wasn't too late after all. "In that case, maybe all we need to do is wait for that girl to come back out…and then we, uh, take the robe…probably by force, unfortunately. What I'm going to need you to do is to create a diversion. Think you can handle that?"

She glanced at the empty space beside her, and the water bubbled its reluctant agreement.

"Great." Moana nodded. "I appreciate it. Okay…so now, we wait."

Sliding down behind the rock, Moana made herself as small as she could, and let out a long, slow breath, trying to release some of the anxious tension that she couldn't help but feel.

Maui is alive, she repeated in the back of her brain. He's alive, and what he needs me to do right now is to stay calm, play it cool, and get in there without being roasted by a fire-breathing sea dragon. No point in rushing in and screwing everything up. That wouldn't help. I just…need to be patient. Yeah. Argh…

Forcing herself to sit quietly, Moana fixed her eyes on the entrance and watched, waiting for the Turehu girl to come back.

Author's Note: I will award five bonus points to anyone who can tell me exactly what is very, very wrong with this situation, or why Moana is, unknowingly, making a very bad choice. Five bonus points can be redeemed at any time for a free one-shot based on your favorite character or headcanon scenario (assuming you wouldn't rather write it yourself, which I strongly encourage).