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nicnacsnonsense · 6 years ago

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Character Arcs and Plot Progression in Moana

(Cross-posted on AO3)

Introduction

Moana is a good, solid movie. The animation is gorgeous, the characters are likable, and the songs are catchy and powerful (with one exception on those latter two, but apparently I’m in the minority on that opinion so we’ll just leave it at that). There are arguably a lot of clichés in it, but I don’t mind that, in theory. The ending was also really good and a fun flip on Disney current trend of twist villains.

All that said, this is a good movie, but it’s not a great one. When I watched it for the first time I left the theater feeling the world of Moana was disappointingly small and the emotional beats were often lacking. I’ve thought about this a lot off and on over the years, and have decided a lot of this is down to problems with three things: the general plot progression, Maui’s character arc, and Moana’s character arc.

In this post I’m going to break down what I think the problem is with each of these things, and propose one way you might fix each specific problem. Upcoming will be a second post which will be a script doctor of the entire movie with alternate solutions to all three problems that come together in a cohesive whole.

Disorganized Plot

Our story begins with Tala, henceforth referred to as Grandma, telling the story of how Maui stole the heart of Te Fiti in an attempt to give humanity the power of creation, but instead destroyed Te Fiti and caused darkness to descend across all of the Polynesia. Whoops. Within these first few minutes the plot of the upcoming movie is pretty clearly defined. Our protagonist will have to traverse treacherous waters in order to restore the heart of Te Fiti and save us all from encroaching death. A solid straight-forward premise with a lot of potential.

We then spend a while on Motunui, establishing Moana’s character and why she specifically is going to be the one going on this adventure. Our inciting incident occurs when Grandma tells Moana to get Maui to restore the heart of Te Fiti, then passes away. Moana leaves then finds Maui very quickly and faces no real challenge in getting him to join her. That is, while Moana does nominally face obstacles, the only things she does herself is get out of a cave. The ocean solves all her other problems for her – it rescues her from the storm, deposits her on the island where Maui is, (and there’s no challenges to finding him once she’s there) and the ocean thwarts Maui’s attempts to steal Moana’s boat or to leave himself. Because of this lack of difficulty and because Maui is our secondary main character, this feels less like step one on the adventure and more like the last bit of set up before we begin the journey.

Next we have an encounter with the Kakamora, then Moana finally convincing Maui to commit to the returning the heart, a trip to Lalotai to get Maui’s fishhook, what I like to call the nighttime conversation of deep sharing, a montage of Maui learning to use his hook again and Moana learning wayfind, a failed attempt to restore the heart, Moana’s lowest point and then finding her resolve, and finally the successful returning of the heart before we fall into the denouement. If we take out the character beats, we’re left with what amounts to a random encounter, then a fetch quest, then two attempts at the final boss. While the trip to retrieve the fishhook is necessary to complete before restoring the heart, as Maui needs the powers of the hook to hold Te Kā off, it feels more like a side quest, though that may be at least in part due to the whole sequence with Tamatoa feeling like something out of a completely different movie altogether. Meanwhile the encounter with the Kakamora is pointless and achieves nothing really. It could have been useful in making the world feel bigger and in selling how dangerous things are now without Te Fiti and her heart if it was one of a few such encounters, but by itself it just feels out of place.

As one possible alternative, we could have Moana not have the heart when she sets out. Maybe the ocean showed it’s choosing of her a different way, or maybe she wasn’t chosen at all, she just sets out to do it because it needs doing. In this version Moana’s only objective is to find Maui to ask him to restore the heart. She finds Maui after overcoming some genuinely difficult obstacle on her own, and makes the ask. Maui agrees, and Moana’s like great, mission achieved! And Maui’s like yeah, sure, buuut I actually need you to take me to get my hook first. So they go to Lalotai and get the hook from Tamatoa. And Moana’s like great, now you can restore the heart! And Maui’s like totally, buuut we need to find the heart first, I don’t actually have it. So they journey to the area of the ocean where Maui thinks he dropped it and they manage to retrieve it after overcoming some obstacle. One possible idea there is for them to encounter an island covered with a profusion of plants, all way larger than normal, causing to think, yep, that’s probably where Te Fiti’s life-giving heart is; how fortunate it’s just being used by plants and not been found by a monster. Except it turns out in addition to growing large and plentiful, Te Fiti’s heart has also caused the plants to grow sentient, and they don’t want to give the heart up. Moana and Maui successfully retrieve the heart, and at that point we can proceed to the confrontations with Te Kā more or less as per canon.

This plot progression allows our lead up to confronting Te Kā and restoring the heart to now become a series of finding x, then y, then z, then the final confrontation. Each thing Moana finds flows into needing to find the next thing, making the story more cohesive as a whole.

Additionally we can take our three major character beats that all take place between Lalotai and Te Fiti – the nighttime conversation of deep sharing, Maui relearning to use his hook, and Moana learning to wayfind – and spread them out between the plot beats. So we have Moana finds Maui and secures his help. Then on the way to Lalotai Maui teaches Moana about wayfinding. They get the hook back from Tamatoa, then on the way to the heart, Moana helps Maui to figure out how to use it again. Finally, as they are approaching Te Fiti, heart and hook in hand, they have a nighttime conversation of deep sharing. By spreading these out it should help build a feeling of distance between each location, making the journey seem longer and the world bigger.

Maui’s Vague Arc

Maui’s arc baffles me, in that I’m not sure what it’s even supposed to be. This I think comes back to what I mentioned earlier about not minding clichés in theory. The problem is with Maui it feels as though they decided on the cliché “disillusioned loner becomes a hero through the power of friendship” and then started applying story and character beats that went with that cliché without considering how those tropes would interact together or with the narrative. The result is a bit of a mess.

As mentioned before the movie opens with the story of Maui stealing the heart of Te Fiti. What’s weird about this is everything about the story, both in the way it’s told and in the way it’s visually presented frame Maui as the villain. This works fine on the first watch because even though even someone who lives in a cave still saw the Blu-ray box art and knows Maui is going to be a good guy, it’s plausible he wasn’t one at the time. On a rewatch though it’s weird to see Maui’s fairly menacing expressions during this story. Still, it can be argued this is Grandma telling the story to the best of her understanding, which is not necessarily a complete and accurate one, and the visuals merely reflect that. Okay, but that raises the issue of why Grandma would ever think asking Maui to restore the heart would be a good idea. In the scenario where Maui stole the heart to give to mankind, it makes sense to go to him and say, “Thanks for the thought, but this is working out pretty terribly for us, so we’d like you to return the heart.” But why would you approach someone who attempted to steal something for their personal benefit and give them that object and think they’ll go give it back to its rightful owner? How does that follow? But okay, we’ll go with it. Maybe Grandma is worried since Maui took the heart, he’s the only one who can put it back.

Moving forward, Moana arrives on Maui’s island and confronts him only for him to reveal, plot twist, he’s actually a hero who stole the heart not for himself, but for mankind. Except then we get an immediate plot twist back that Maui is a selfish jerk who leaves Moana to die in a cave, refuses to help her restore the heart, and then leaves her to be killed by the Kakamora. But twist back again, he really does want to be a hero to all and Moana is able to use that desire to get him to agree to restore the heart. But that doesn’t stop him from continually trying to get out of it, as though this is something Moana is forcing him to do rather than something she’s convinced him to do, and being extremely dismissive of and arguably flat-out mean to Moana.

The thing of it is there are a lot of different ways you could explain his behavior. Maybe he really does care about mankind and want to be a hero again, but he’s so afraid of Te Kā/convinced the heart is a genuine curse on him for stealing it that he can’t face this one particular task, and he’s lashing out at Moana for dragging him into it, despite deep down knowing she’s right. Maybe he wants to be a hero again because he wants the adulation of mankind, but he doesn’t actually care about people and feels this task is too much of a risk to be worth it. Maybe he’s only agreed because the ocean is basically refusing to give him a choice and he feels forced into it. Maybe he only agreed as a way of conning Moana into taking him to get his fishhook back, and he only decides he’s actually going to help with the Te Fiti thing after she saves him from Tamatoa. Any of these could work, but the movie pursues none of them, leaving his motivations unexplained and confusing.

Back to the plot, next they go to Lalotai and Maui gets his hook back, finds he can no longer use it effectively, and almost gets killed by Tamatoa, only to be saved by Moana’s quick thinking. There’s also a point in Tamatoa’s song where he references Maui having been abandoned in the past and brings attention to one of Maui’s tattoos. After they escape Lalotai, there’s a brief moment where Maui expresses a new found appreciation for Moana because she saved his life, but that character connection is immediately undercut by the humor of Maui’s hook continuing to malfunction.

Cut to later, and our nighttime conversation of deep sharing. Though it technically appears to be astronomical twilight as opposed to true night, but that’s less important than all the other ways this scene falls flat. The scene begins with Maui being despondent about his hook not working. Eventually he sits up with his back to Moana, prompting her to ask about his tattoo. We find out over the course of the ensuing argument that she believes the story behind the tattoo could explain why he can’t use his hook anymore. If they’re not really thinking about it, this can make sense to the audience. We were just shown this tattoo in a way that emphasizes to the us that this is important right after we were shown Maui’s inability to use his hook. In that context, Moana’s insistent questioning is justified – saving her dying island and presumably every island dying everywhere is more important than Maui’s reticence over talking about his personal issues.

But once you move past the framing and think about the logic of the situation, that assumption makes no sense. Why would this tattoo showing a woman chucking a baby into the ocean have anything to do with Maui’s hook? Why would you think any of his tattoos have anything to do with it? It’s been a thousand years since he’s had his hook; shouldn’t your base assumption be he’s out of practice and he just needs to keep at it until he can get back into the swing of things? In that context Moana’s questioning comes off as harassment. She asked him about something personal, he declined to answer and she kept asking and asking over repeated protests and even smacked him with her oar a couple times. Not hard, but she’s still hitting him. Eventually he grabs the oar away from her, throwing her into the ocean in the process.

When she gets back on the boat Moana reminds Maui of what’s at stake and says she only wants to help. Okay, fine Moana’s made this weird assumption, but given that her behavior is understandable, and it makes sense that her half-apology, half-explanation would placate Maui. What doesn’t make sense is why this would prompt Maui to explain the tattoo. Because while Moana might make a weird assumption, Maui should know the tattoo has nothing to do with his hook. It can’t, despite what the movie tries to imply, because that is something that happened when he was an infant, and he successfully used the hook for many years after it.

Maui tells her his backstory which is basically his parents threw him away, the gods gave him his fishhook and made him the demigod Maui, and then he went back to humans and started doing stuff for them, but it was never enough. What “it” was and who it wasn’t enough for is left undefined; best guess is that the adulation of humanity was never enough to give him a sense of real self-worth. Moana tells him essentially maybe the gods and the ocean chose him because they thought he was worth something and also self-worth comes from within not from gods or magic fishhooks. This comes off more as clichéd advice born of general sympathy than true friendship and deep empathy, which is not particularly emotionally satisfying, even if it does make sense as Moana doesn’t really know Maui that well and they aren’t friends at this point, or arguably ever.

Regardless, this encouragement is enough to give Maui renewed hope and he tries the hook again and everything goes perfectly. So he’s told he doesn’t need the hook and that’s the key to let him use it again. Apparently he was having performance issues, and he just needed to relax and let it happen naturally… One hopes that wasn’t the metaphor they were deliberately going for, but there it is.

After that we have the back to back learning montages, then the first confrontation with Te Kā, then Maui and Moana’s falling out where Maui leaves. I’ll come back to this scene later, but for now in specific reference to Maui’s character and his character and actions alone, it actually works well. His anger at Moana feels justified, and his psychological reliance on his hook has been established enough it feels believable that the possibility of losing it would cause him to leave.

Then he comes back and offers literally zero explanation as to why he did so. Not even a stupid joking one. He just kind of laughs awkwardly and goes to fight Te Kā. This would be fine if he had seemed conflicted when he left or if we had seen something in between leaving and coming back showing him reconsidering, but failing that there needs to be some indication of why he changed his mind. As it stands, the end of his character arc here falls flat because while his return indicates some sort of growth, we don’t know how he’s grown or what triggered that growth.

I have so many ideas of different ways you could take this character arc, probably because it’s so vague. That being said, since I’ve talked about this a lot already, I’ll stick to one fairly simple one here. You can keep everything the same except for two scenes, the one where he leaves and the one where he comes back.

The scene where he leaves would start the same, with him angry at Moana and blaming the damage to his hook on her and her need to prove she’s special. But in this version, she turns it back around on him. She’s not the one with the need to prove she’s special, she’s just trying to save her island. Maui’s the one who wants everyone to think he’s the hero of man, but a real hero would have tried to restore the heart of Te Fiti the second he realized what a mistake he’d made, not sat around in his cave and sulked for a millennium. He doesn’t care about humans, he just wants them to worship him to make up for his parents never loving him. Moana immediately realizes she went too far, but Maui leaves before she can apologize.

When Maui comes back she tells him she’s sorry, and he accepts it. He agrees that she crossed a line, but at the same time acknowledges she was mostly right about him. If he wants to be a hero, then he needs to start acting like one. Thank you, you’re welcome exchange, because that part is amazing and gives me shivers, then the rest of the movie as per canon.

Just these two adjustments fix so much. The inclusion of Maui’s backstory with his parents now feels necessary because it comes back later. Maui’s accusation that Moana risked their lives to feel special is no longer supported by the narrative – which is odd as it’s never a part of her character elsewhere – but called out as him projecting. His desire to be a hero contradicting with his actions and treatment of Moana is now a feature, not a bug. And finally his character arc is clearly defined as him starting as a fake hero only in it for the accolades to bolster his own sense of worth and growing to become a real hero in it to help people because he was inspired by Moana’s example.

Moana’s Disjointed Arc

Moana’s character arc is kind of bizarre. The opening establishes her central character conflict very well: she’s pulled between her responsibilities as the daughter of the village chief and next in line to lead – represented by the song “Where You Are” – and her own personal desire to voyage the ocean – represented by the song “How Far I’ll Go.” Then toward the end during her lowest moment, Grandma’s ghost shows up to comfort Moana, and Moana realizes these two disparate parts of herself can exist in harmony and together they make up who she is – represented by the song “I Am Moana” which is reprise of both “Where You Are” and “How Far I’ll Go.” It’s very moving and bringing those two songs back is very powerful, except…

Except there is nothing related to this character arc between those key points. Ultimately it’s less of a character arc and more of a pair of character pillars with nothing connecting them. The reason we don’t see any of this struggle during the middle part of the movie is it is fundamentally incompatible with plot as they have it. Moana’s character conflict is between her duty to her people and her love of the ocean, and the plot is her saving her people by going on an ocean adventure. There is no conflict there. The conflict was resolved the moment Grandma gave her the heart of Te Fiti and told her to restore it.

This causes a problem toward the end, because when there is no conflict, then the only way to cause her to hit that low moment and give up is by making her feel like she failed, but that’s doesn’t give us the veneer of crisis of self we need to justify the next song and to make it feel as though her arc has been completed. So the movie throws this conflict at us where when Maui leaves he tells Moana the ocean was wrong to choose her, and this apparently breaks her and makes her give up. Except, Moana never seems particularly concerned about the whole “Chosen One” aspect. Maui harps on it much more than she does. She’s here because she wants to save her people. During their nighttime conversation of deep sharing Moana explicitly says, “I don’t know why the ocean chose me. You’re right. But my island is dying, so I am here.”

As a side note to that, the whole idea of Moana being chosen is a little weird, because throughout most of the movie everyone seems convinced Maui is going to be the one to actually restore the heart. This means what Moana was chosen to do was to take Maui to Te Fiti. Maybe it’s just me, but water taxi doesn’t feel like a job that requires a chosen one.

If we want to keep this same character arc, then we’re going to need to make some changes to the plot. We’re going to really embrace the rebellious princess cliché. In this version Moana feels a lot of pressure at the idea of becoming the next chief of the village, compounded by her certainty she won’t be able to live up to her father’s example and also by the unexplained blight that has recently began destroying their crops and killing off the fish. Sailing is her one escape from everything. Moana gets older, the blight gets worse, and the pressure continues to grow. Grandma dies, and that’s the final straw – Moana straight-up runs away. No noble intentions, no heart of Te Fiti – at this point Moana’ doesn’t even know the heart’s been stolen – Moana just can’t take it anymore and leaves.

Soon after leaving she runs into Maui and, being a big fan of his from all the stories of the cool things he’s done, asks if she can voyage with him. He agrees to let her join him on his quest, but remains vague about the exact nature of it at first. They voyage together for a while and overcome a number of obstacles. Said obstacles can be things Maui says need to do to move their as of yet undefined quest forward or they can be random encounters like the Kakamora are in canon. Finally, during their nighttime conversation of deep sharing, Maui tells her the story of how he tried to give humanity the gift of creation by stealing the heart of Te Fiti and how he seriously firetrucked that up big time. He’s spent a long time running away from his mistake, but now he’s going to own up to his responsibilities. He gives Moana an out before their confrontation with Te Kā because of how dangerous it will be, but Moana reaffirms her intention to help.

They face off against Te Kā, and Moana nearly dies. She freaks out because this is way beyond what she wanted. She wanted to explore and have adventures, not face a real and imminent threat of death. She doesn’t want to do this anymore, so Maui leaves to try again on his own. Moana descends into an existential crisis: being a voyager is not what she thought it’d be and her guilt over abandoning Maui brings back the guilt over abandoning her people she’d been suppressing. Stingray Grandma shows up to comfort her, and makes the revelation the blight on Motunui is being caused by Te Fiti’s lost heart. Moana realizes that abandoning her people, though wrong, is what brought her to where she was meant to be to save them. These two sides of herself come together because she can fulfill her duty to her people by being herself and she can face the dangers on her chosen path if it’s to help her people. She heads back to Te Kā and Maui, and this time she’s the one who enters the battle at the pivotal moment to turn the tide. The rest again goes more or less per canon.

This way there is genuine conflict between Moana’s people and her love of the sea until the moment of resolution at the end. Further, Moana’s lowest moment is now caused by an actual existential crisis, not just a lack of confidence in her ability to do the task, so it makes sense it would be resolved with a realization of self. And as a bonus you can still use the song “I Am Moana” without changing it all, because if anything I feel it fits this version of the story even better than canon.

Conclusion

I just want to close out with two quick reminders. First of all, despite my complaining I do think this was a good movie, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves the classic Disney animated movies. Secondly I do plan to write another script doctor for this movie this time addressing all three of these issues I found in different ways than I have above and in a ways that work together cohesively. Finally, if you have thoughts on this, if you agree with me, if you disagree, if you have an idea that I didn’t consider here, I would love to hear it and discuss it!

Next part is here.

#Moana #Disney #Maui #meta #fan essay

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pengychan · 8 years ago

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Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 18

Title: Te Rerenga Wairua Summary: Found by the gods drifting at sea, Maui always assumed he had been thrown in it to drown. When that assumption is challenged, there is only one way to find closure: speaking to his long-departed family. But it’s never a smooth sail to the Underworld, and he’ll need help from a friend - plus a token that fell in the claws of an old enemy long ago. Characters: Maui, Moana, Tamatoa Rating: K Prologue and links to all chapters up so far here.

A/N: Well, this chapter got long. But I couldn’t find a good place to split it, so here’s the whole thing - I guess it makes up for the epilogue, since it will be rather short!

***

Taranga had known something was wrong from the very start, when the pain had struck - sudden, agonizing, and all too soon.

She’d brought five children into the world already, four sons and a daughter, and she had come to known the pain of the delivery all too well. But her children had been healthy, all of them born at the ninth month. This time, the pain had come at the beginning of the seventh. It was far too early; from the instant the midwife had come into her home, after her children were ushered outside to play before they could realize anything was wrong, her grim expression had told her as much.

“My baby,” she’d managed to plead, but the woman had shaken her head.

“You have five little ones already, and you can have others. It is you I need to save,” she had said, and save her she did. The pain had ended, but she’d hardly taken notice. All she could do was staring a at the unmoving child, listen to the deafening silence that was never broken by a single wail. The midwife had tried to revive him, but of course it had been for naught. You cannot revive a stillborn. Only the gods can, and the gods were not answering to her prayers.

“Don’t take him away,” was all Taranga said after a long time, causing the woman to pause.

“He should be buried, dear.”

“I’ll do it by my own hand. I need some time with him. Please.”

She nodded, and placed down the child. She’d cleaned him, wrapped in a blanket. It had been the baby blanket of all of Taranga’s children, from Mua down to Roto, and now it was a shroud. The thought should have pained her, but instead it left her cold, as though she was someplace beyond pain. Even physically, she hardly felt any; nothing compared to previous childbirths, because the baby she’d delivered was so much tinier.

“I’ll have someone look after your children for a while longer. Do you wish us to tell them…?”

“Please,” Taranga said, closing her eyes. She didn’t think she would be able to hold it together if she had to tell the children that the baby brother - or sister, Hina always said pointedly to her brothers’ amusement - they’d all be waiting for had arrived too early, and was now gone before his time even started. Taha would probably try to keep a stiff upper lip, the little warrior, but Pae would certainly burst crying, and before long they all would be sobbing. She couldn’t bear to listen to their crying now: it would only remind her of the wails she should have heard that day, and never would.

I’ll have to tell Ira-Whaki, when he returns.

Thinking of her husband was even worse. Big, strong and a boy at heart, he’d been even more delighted than any of his children to know he was to be a father again. He’d laughed, gifted her a golden hairpin he’d fashioned with his own hands, and left for a voyage with a smile as wide as the horizon, promising he would be back on time to welcome his newest child into the world.

But that child had arrived too early, and his father would return too late.

We didn’t even get to give him a name.

Somehow, it was that thought that got her to finally sit up, and take the still body of her child in her arms. For a moment she stared down at him, hoping against hope to see him moving, to hear him sucking in a breath and wail, but of course none of it happened. Her youngest son never breathed, and he would never have a name. There would be no point to it now; what good is a name if no one ever calls you by it?

Voices outside her home snapped her from her thoughts, causing her to look up. She could hear the voices of children and, higher than them all, Hina’s protests that she hadn’t lost her bracelet of glass beads at the beach, that someone must have stolen it. She was still unaware that she had lost more than a bracelet that day, but soon she and her brothers would be told, and Taranga didn’t want to be there when it happened: she wouldn’t be able to give them any comfort. Not before she got a chance to mourn, not before her child was buried at sea as it was custom, so that his soul could find its way to the Underworld. Then, perhaps, she could be there for her living children without shattering.

So Taranga stood, kissed her stillborn son once, and went alone to do what had to be done. It would be only much later, while running a hand through what remained of her hair, that she’d realize she had forgotten the golden hairpin her husband had gifted her in the sand. She found she couldn’t bring herself to care; it was but a reminder of the child she had lost, and she had no use for it.

For the rest of her life - which would be long and overall happy, with five children to watch grow into adulthood and more grandchildren than she could look after on her own - she’d keep her hair shorn. And, for much of her existence after death, she would look for her lost boy across the Underworld.

She never found him, but never truly stopped trying.

***

“Look at the claws! Hey, can you uproot trees with these?”

“What kind of question is that? Sure I can. Several at once.”

“This is sooo cool!”

“Of course it is. Everything about me is– hey! Keep your hands out of my eye, will you? And quit yanking my antennae! Have human kids always been this nosy?”

“Is this real gold?”

“When did you climb– well, of course it is! No cheap knockoffs on my shell. Wait, are you trying to bite it? What’s wrong with you, kid?”

“Just checking it’s real gold!”

“I told you it is. Keep your teeth off my stuff!”

“Oh! Oh! I have a question! Why are you so big?”

“I eat a lot.”

“A lot of what?”

“Curious human kids with curly hair and a missing front tooth.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Me neither!”

“You’re totally bluffing!”

“Moana said you wouldn’t raise a pincer on us!”

“Oh, did she? Great. There goes my reputation.”

“What reputation? I never heard of you before. Only of Maui.”

“… Don’t push your luck, kid. There’s a lot of stuff you never heard– what have you got there?”

“A pearl! I found it this morning! Do you want it?”

“What?”

“Moana said you like these things.”

“… What’s the catch?”

“Huh?”

“What, you’re just giving it out for free like– oh! Oh. That’s a present, right? Of course it is. Who wouldn’t want to give me presents?”

“Do you like it?”

“Well, it’s not a bad find for a beginner. Give it here.”

“Can put it up on your shell?”

“If you insist–”

“Hey! You’re missing a leg! Why are you missing a leg?”

“A megalodon ate it.”

“Cool!”

“I didn’t think it was cool at a–”

“How did that go?”

“How big is a megalodon?”

“Is it bigger than a wale?”

“Is it bigger than you?”

“Is it bigger or smaller than–”

The rest of the sentence was covered by Maui’s chuckle. “Well, who’d have guessed? They hit it off right away,” he muttered before taking another bite out of the coconut. He seemed to have absolutely no trouble chewing the entire thing, shell and all, which had fascinated all the children in the village the first time they’d met - but now their attention was entirely taken by the talking, giant crab monster currently sprawled on the sand. Maui didn’t seem to mind at all, and was observing the scene from some distance away. “Then again, he’s got their undivided attention. Of course he loves that.”

Moana supposed that the introduction had gone as well as they could have possibly hoped. A couple of people had dropped unconscious when he’d first come out of the water, but that had been about it. Her people had trusted her word enough not to panic and Tamatoa, to be fair, had done his best to look as nonthreatening as possible by immediately resting down on the sand. He still towered over everyone, obviously enough, but she supposed it was the thought that counted.

The kids were not supposed to be part of the picture at all, and their parents had all told them to stay behind in the village, but of course that had stopped precisely none of them. That had caused some concern from the adults when they’d suddenly appeared to check out the novelty - more than a few were still eyeing Tamatoa’s claws worriedly - but, overall, they seemed to be coming to terms with his presence quickly enough. Not quite as quickly as their children, but still pretty fast all things considered.

“It went pretty well,” Moana conceded, with no small amount of relief.

Beside her, her mother frowned slightly. “What does he eat?” she asked, causing Maui to shrug.

“Fish, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Oh, and a bit of this and a bit of that. He’s kind of a scavenger, not really picky. No need to worry about that - he’s pretty good at catching his own food.”

Tui gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. We usually offer food to any guests, but… well,” he said, gesturing towards Tamatoa. “He probably eats more than all of us.”

Moana shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. If you want to get him anything, just pick something shiny. You can’t go wrong with–”

“All right, all right, just be quiet a moment!” Tamatoa’s voice cut her off. “If you shut up I’ll tell you just what happened - in song form!”

Oh. Oh no.

“Nope. I’m not listening to this one,” Maui declared, and stood, reaching for his hook. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been great to see you all again, but Moana and I have some sudden, urgent business on the other side of the island. Be back later. Enjoy the show for us, okay? And even if you don’t, for Tagaloa’s sake, tell him you loved it.”

“Wha–” Moana’s father began, but he had no time to say anything more before Maui shifted into his hawk form, grabbed Moana, and flew off quick as lighting.

As much as she disliked flying, Moana had absolutely no complaints this time.

***

“Do you think it’s safe to go back? He can’t be still singing, can he?”

“He could very well be, and you know it. By the way, are you ever gonna stop following us?”

Stretched out in the low waters, the setting sun making his scales look an even deeper red than usual, Pilifeai shrugged. “Well, I don’t have much else to do. Lalotai gets rather dull after a thousand years or two.”

“So what, you just decided you’re going to hang around? Last time you decided to bother humans–”

With a sigh, the giant lizard rolled on his back. He seemed to be enjoying the last rays of sun immensely. “Yes, yes. They had their ancestors chase me all the way back to Lalotai because I apparently wasn’t such a great neighbour.”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “Apparently?” he repeated. “You ate all of the fish and refused to scram when asked to.”

“Oh, was I asked to leave now? And here I thought they tried to skewer me with pathetic little spears. And it’s not like the fish in the sea belonged to them,” Pilifeai pointed out, but sighed at Maui’s glare. “I know, I know. I won’t cause problems this time around. I’m not looking forward to get my tail kicked by the dead again. Or a demigod with a horrible temper, or a human who happens to be able to shrink me at will, or a giant idiot crab who apparently decided the tiny humans are his pets from now on.”

Moana let out a small laugh, finally sitting up on the sand. “It looks more like they decided he’s their giant pet from now on.”

“To anybody but the idiot crab, yes. Let him keep the delusion.”

“Fair enough,” Maui said, only to frown when a cloud suddenly passed in front of the setting sun. It was beautiful to see - the cloud itself looked like it was aflame, the shades of orange starting to give in to the growing darkness of the evening - but it was a reminder than they’d been there for several hours. He sighed, and stood. “Well, maybe it’s time to get back. He’ll have probably stopped singing by now. Should we take the risk?”

Moana nodded and opened her mouth to agree, but words died in her throat the moment the her gaze fell on the sea. Without the rays of the sun making its surface shimmer, the ocean looked darker - and thus it was easy to spot something moving towards the shore, something that shone of an otherworldly light, leaving a trail in its wake. Moana knew what it was, because she’d seen it before, and she knew why it was there.

“Moana? Hello? I said, should we take the ri–” Maui began, only to trail off with a yelp when Moana wordlessly grabbed him by the ear and made him turn towards the ocean. “Ow! What was that abo–” he began, but then he turned his gaze to the sea, and his voice faded into silence. “Ah,” he finally said, and Moana let go of him. He stood straight, rubbing his ear and saying nothing more: he just watched along with her as the shimmering form reached the shore, until something that looked like fine mist rose from the waves and then took on a different shape - until a woman stood on the sand some distance away, like Gramma Tala had once stood on Moana’s boat. She turned to look at them, her expression impossible to see from that far away, and Maui’s fishhook fell from his slackened grip.

“Well,” Moana said, her voice very quiet, “I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

Maui didn’t reply, but she hadn’t really expected him to. She just watched him begin to walk up to the woman - very slowly, so much unlike his usual strides - and then turned to Pilifeai, who was squinting at the woman as though trying his best to see her face.

“I hope you’re not even thinking of eavesdropping this one.”

“Well, after coming this far–”

“Iti haere.”

“Wha– Oh, you are a pain, you know?” Pilifeai grumbled. Moana shrugged, picking him up and settling him down on her shoulder.

“You’re staying like this tonight,” she informed, turning away and starting what was going to be a fairly long walk back to the fledgling village. If Maui’s mother had come now it was likely Tamatoa’s would as well soon, and she wasn’t going to let Pilifeai intrude into that one, either. “Behave and I might turn you back your full size in the morning.”

“You know I can swim like this too, right? What keeps me from going the moment you turn–”

“And risk becoming some big fish’s dinner? Or a bird’s? I am pretty sure I have seen hawks around here,” Moana pointed out, causing Pilifeai to fall silent for a few moments as he tried to think of a retort. He clearly couldn’t think of anything, and he finally sighed.

“I loathe you.”

“No, you don’t. Just stick with me tonight, and you’ll be safe.”

“How about I bite off one of your ears?”

“Go ahead. I heard that roasted lizard is delicious.”

Pilifeai sighed, and settled down across her shoulders. “Ah well. It was worth a try,” he muttered. Moana chuckled and, before going around a bend, she turned to give just one glance back.

“Aww, look at that. They’re hugging,” Pilifeai said, and Moana smiled. There was lump in her throat and her vision was getting a bit blurry, but it didn’t feel bad at all.

“Well. That started out pretty well,” she said, and had to reach out to wipe her eyes before she turned back and resumed walking. “That hug was a long time coming.”

Pilifeai sniffled.

“… Sand in your eyes?” Moana guessed, but she had to wipe her own eyes again even as she grinned, causing the lizard to snort out a laugh.

“And in yours as well. I won’t tell if you don’t tell.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

***

Maui had prepared a short speech for that moment.

Well, maybe not quite a speech, but he’d definitely been thinking up scenarios, and had had a few words in mind to tell his mother, when they were finally face to face. He had rehearsed them in his mind, over and over.

Except that now he didn’t remember a single word. It was hard to remember much of anything with his brain seemingly frozen, unable to process anything but the woman only a few steps from him. To be completely fair, he wasn’t the only one: she was doing exactly the same, just staring at him with wide eyes and not saying a single word. There was a light breeze, but it didn’t seem to touch her, her translucent clothes not moving with it. Somewhere by them the ocean waves still rolled, but they sounded so far away.

Without thinking, Maui brought a hand up to his hair and took the hairpin. He held it out on his palm, so that she could see it - it is me, you see, it’s really me - and her gaze paused on it for a few moments before looking back up at his face. Her eyes moved across his features, as though she was trying to find anything she’d recognize, but how could she? Last time she’d seen him, he’d been a baby… and not entirely formed to boot.

I don’t look like her.

The thought stung, just a little. There really was no resemblance he could see, aside from maybe something about the eye shape. She was taller than most women he’d met, but her frame was so slim it was hard to believe she’d carried him at any point in life, baby or not, and her features were a lot less marked than his own. Maui’s eyes moved from her face to her hair, which was short, uncannily so. Had they never grown back after she cut it to mourn him? No, that was ridiculous, growing was what hair did. Had she kept it short by choice? Had it been because of him, for him? Had she–

“This is where I came to lay you to rest.”

Her voice was quiet, as though coming from a mile away. Maui recoiled, and realized only then that she had turned her gaze to the rolling waves. She stared at them for a few more moments, as though seeing something he could not, and Maui finally found his voice.

“… It is?” he asked, looking around as though hoping to see a village that must have stood near that spot, a long time ago. It was odd to think that, some five thousand years earlier, his motionless body had been brought on those shores to be left to the sea, with Tamatoa watching on, still small enough to go unnoticed. Had he not stolen the hairpin that day, had Maui never met him, he would have never known the truth… and neither would his mother.

“Yes. Or at least, I thought I was laying you to rest. I thought I would never see you again. And then, when the end of my life neared, I thought I finally would. But you weren’t there,” she spoke again, a shaky quality to her voice that made Maui turn back to her. There were tears in her eyes, translucent as the rest of her was, but she was beginning to smile. “But here you are again. Here of all places. All grown up, a demigod, and… oh gods, you look so much like your father!”

Looking back, the statement shouldn’t have surprised him that much; most kids resemble at least one of their parents. But it was unexpected enough for Maui to be taken aback, and so was what she did next - she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck.

“I looked for you for so long,” she choked out, and Maui held her back without thinking. It didn’t feel like holding onto someone of flesh and blood, but she wasn’t incorporeal either, and it was a lot more than what he’d thought he could have. For most of his life, he’d tried his best to keep himself from even wondering what a mother’s embrace would feel like.

“I’m sorry,” Maui heard himself saying. His own voice sounded alien to him, hoarse, and there was no blaming sand in his eyes for that. “I didn’t know– I just assumed you had… since I was left at sea…”

Taranga’s arms tightened their grip, her face resting against his shoulder. “Never, I could have never. We were so eager to welcome you. You were so wanted.”

Something in Maui’s chest, a weight that had always been there - no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, no matter the lessons learned and the knowledge that he was worthy, whether or not those who had brought him into the world could see it - melted away, the familiar ache turning into something else he couldn’t quite define. How do you even begin to call the absence of an ache that used to be such a fundamental part of you, the very core of everything he’d ever tried to be? Maui didn’t know. And at the moment, he found that he really didn’t care.

You were so wanted.

“I know it now,” he found himself saying. “A crab told me. The one who stole your hairpin.”

The sound that left her could have been a sob, or a laugh, or both. She finally pulled back - it took Maui some effort to force himself to let go - and reached to take his face in her hands. “You’ll have to tell me all that happened, because the Manaia’s explanation was quite confusing,” she said, and smiled again, thumbs brushing over Maui’s cheeks. He leaned into the touch without thinking. “Along with everything else you’ve been up to. I’d heard of you, can you believed it?” she added, and laughed. It sounded much deeper than he’d have expected from someone so slim. “So many people coming to the Underworld talking about this great hero, this Maui, and it was you. My little littlest boy, not so little anymore.”

Maui gave a somewhat sheepish grin. “Well, hope you have some spare time, because there is a lot to tell. Some of the stuff I did wasn’t… well, I didn’t really think it all the way through. But overall– wait,” he cut himself off, blinking down at her, the moment what he’d just heard sank in. “Your littlest boy? Do I have siblings?”

Taranga smiled up at him again. No, wait, that wasn’t a smile at all - that was a grin. Suddenly, Maui could see some resemblance all right. “You have five.”

“Five?”

The grin became somewhat sheepish. “Mua, Taha, Pae, Roto and Hina. I asked them to stay behind, because I figured that… well, seeing us all at once might be overwhelming.”

Maui, who’d already started to grin himself, felt a pang of disappointment at the words. “Ah,” said. “I… would like to meet them too, sometime. Maybe next time–”

“Well, that’s good to know,” his mother cut him off, turning to glance at the sea with a raised eyebrow. “Because as usual, they didn’t listen to me at all.”

“… Huh?”

Maui followed her gaze. The sun was almost entirely gone now, the sky beginning to darken, and he could see something approaching fast - five of them, really. They could have passed off as normal sharks, if not for the otherworldly glow around each of them and the translucent trails they left behind. They were coming straight at them - it seemed to Maui that a couple of them were making a point of cutting in in front of the others - and it only took moments before one of them reached land, its form shifting and a man’s voice shouting in victory.

“First! As usual. Is it me or you guys are getting slower with each passing century? It felt like racing with old ladies.”

“You cheated, you lump of stupid!”

“Ho-oh, the old lady is a sore loser!”

“You kept cutting us off!”

“Like you didn’t, Pae. And you still came, what, fourth? Ah well. At least you weren’t dead last. Hey, Roto. Took you a while. Did you get lost on the way?”

“Taha, are we really going to start this aga–”

“All right, get out of the way, all of you. I’ve had to look at your mugs for thousands of years. I’ve got a new brother to get sick and tired of, if you don’t min–”

“I was under the impression I’d asked the lot of you not to come,” Tarange spoke out, and there was an edge to her voice that very nearly caused Maui to cringe. There was something downright scary there, and he found himself thinking he wasn’t really looking forward to ever being on the receiving end of it.

Those who were on the receiving end - four men, all of them almost as broad as himself, and a woman who was taller than at least two of them - immediately fell silent and turned to them, moving as one like trained dolphins.

“Well–”

“We were about to stay behind, but then Mua said–”

“Hey! Don’t go blaming me! We were all in this!”

There was a groan, and the woman - Hina, was that how his sister was called? - rolled her eyes. “Really?” she muttered, and took a step forward. “You can’t have expected us to really stay behind, Ma. Not for one moment. We’ve sort of been waiting to meet this baby brother for some five thousand of years,” she pointed out, and looked straight at Maui for the first time. The others were staring at him too, now, and while Maui was used to undivided attention, it was enough to make him uncomfortable now. So he reacted to it in the only way he knew: with cockyness.

“Well, was I worth the wait?” he asked, spreading his arms with a grin - never mind how much of him sort of dreaded a negative answer. He inwardly hoped that they wouldn’t notice Mini Maui sobbing away on his chest, with Mini Moana patting his back, and that they’d rather focus on the epic feats depicted on his skin. However, Hina seemed to notice none of it. She stared at him in the eye and raised an eyebrow, but a smile was already tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“I’d been hoping for a baby sister, really. But a shape shifter, demigod of wind and the sea, hero of Men and whatnot?” Her face split in a grin. “I’d say that’s the next best thing.”

Later, Maui wouldn’t be sure which one of them had reached for him first; there was a blur of motion and a moment later he’d found himself on the sand, all breath knocked out of him, tackled by what felt like five dozen people instead of just five amongst gales of laughter.

“Oof!”

“Look at this! We looked for you across the Underworld, and you were up here all along!”

“Pulling off the stuff of legends!”

“And getting all the girls, I bet!”

“You left me behind as the youngest brother! The butt of all jokes! That should have been you, you know!”

“Haha! Good look making him the butt of all jokes now! Tagaloa, look at you!”

“Hey, what was that about you lifting the sky?”

“And slowing down the sun?”

“You’re gonna have to tell us everything!”

“And Taha thought he was so great because he got a whale once!”

“Well, it was a big whale!”

“Wait until we tell everybody about this!”

“If you think there’s a lot of us now, wait until you meet everyone else!”

“Yeah, there’s our grandmother wanting to meet you, and then our kids, and their kids, and their kids–”

“There was also a guy called Vailele and his wife, I think she’s my great grandkid or something, and they told us to tell you they said hi…”

“Like, half the Underworld wanted to come see you!”

The tackle had long since turned into a messy group hug, and by the time Maui let go of them they were all covered in sand, half-laughing and half-crying while pretending the latter was only caused by the sand. Standing a few feet away, Taranga shook her head - not without reaching to wipe her eyes as well first. “Kids,” she muttered, and then frowned. “… By the way, where’s your father?” she asked, only to get a few confused look.

“Wait, wasn’t dad with you?”

“We assumed he was with you.”

“No, I assumed he was with you.”

“See, so you were expecting us to turn up!”

“All right, but where’s dad?”

“… Huh, do you think that may be him?”

Pae’s question caused all of them to glance out and sea, which was now almost completely dark. And, in that darkness, Maui could just see something translucent moving in circles, then turning north, then going back and lingering for a few moments before turning west and start swimming again… towards another island.

Behind Maui, there was a collective groan.

“Yep,” Hina muttered. “His sense of direction still sucks.”

Taranga sighed. “Roto, be a dear and go fetch your father before he becomes lost.”

“Uugh, why does it always have to be me? Can’t someone else–” he began, but Hina smacked him in the chest suddenly, and with enough strength to throw him back into the sea with a yelp. His form returned to the likeness of a shark the moment he touched water.

“You heard the boss. Go get dad.”

The shark went without further arguments - though he did raise more splashes than necessary with his tail in their general direction - and Mua looked at Maui with a grin. “The old man’s gonna have a heart attack when he sees you,” he said. Maui raised and eyebrow.

“Can that actually happen after you’re dead?” he asked, doing his best to ignore how his heart was beating somewhere in his throat at the thought of seeing his father as well - someone who looked so much like him, if what his mother had said was true.

Unaware of his thoughts, his siblings shrugged. “We can find out,” Taha muttered, glaring himself a glare from their mother.

“I’d rather you don’t,” she muttered, but her voice was drowned out by Pae’s.

“Hey, shouldn’t there be a magical fishhook? Everyone always mentioned you had one.”

“Right! Is it true that you can shapeshift with it?”

Maui laughed. “Oh, you bet it is!” he exclaimed, turning back the way he’d come. The hook was exactly where he’d dropped it. “Give me a second to pick it up, and I’ll show you!”

Over the centuries and millennia, Maui had impressed thousands of humans with his feats; but he had been aware, deep down, that the ones he had truly wanted to impress were far beyond his reach. Now they were there, at the end of a long road that had led him right back where his life had begun, and he knew that he didn’t need to impress any of them. They had come so far to meet him again, and they would have done so even if he were not, well. Maui.

Still, he was Maui… and he may as well treat his family to a little show, after going almost literally through hell and back in order to find them.

So he went to pick up his hook and turned back to them, and to the two silvery beings that were heading back towards the beach. When he lifted it above his head, he could feel himself thrumming with energy in a way he never had, a weightlessness in his chest he’d never felt. He held onto his hook - still an extension of himself, no longer his crutch - more tightly, and smirked.

It’s Maui time.

***

“All right, all right, here’s the deal: I do it one more time, and then that’s it. Then lot of you goes to bed before your parents here have an aneurysm, because I’m not gonna be held responsible for that. Deal?”

“Deal!”

“Hey, you in the back! I saw you crossing your fingers! No crossing!”

“C’mon!”

“Look! No crossing!”

“Just do the thing! Pretty please?”

Ah well, Tamatoa supposed that he should relent, since his adoring public was asking so nicely. He grinned, and turned on his bioluminescence. It was a moonless night, and it easily outshone the few fires on the shore, getting some pretty loud cheering out of the kids. Humans sure were easy to impress - no wonder Maui got their adoration in no time at all. Had he known how that would turn out, he’d have followed his example way earlier.

“All right, that was it. Enough for the day,” Tamatoa said, and turned off his bioluminescence, causing a disappointed groan and a few protests before they gave in began following the adults back to the village. Truth be told he could have kept that up all night, except that he hadn’t seen Maui and Moana anywhere for a while and was wondering where they had gone. They hadn’t even heard his song, and that was a shame because it was great, if he said so himself. Humans had loved it, nodding so fast when he’d asked that for a moment he’d wondered if it would be possible for their heads to fall off their necks.

The adults hadn’t asked for him to sing again, but the kids had wanted to hear it two more times and even tried to sing along with questionable results, so he supposed humans got shy as they aged. It was the only explanation he could think of. Moana was probably an exception. But really, where had she disappeared to? Maybe he should go looking for–

“Hey,” Moana’s voice rang out suddenly, causing him to recoil. He hadn’t heard her coming at all, and he had to squint a bit to see her in the faint light of the fires on the shore.

“Human! Here you are! I was wondering where you went. You missed– wait, is that Pilifeai on your shoulder? And where’s Maui? Has he gone off again without even saying goodbye? Because that would be really rude and–”

“He hasn’t gone anywhere. At least I don’t think so,” Moana cut him off. “It’s just… his mother came to find him. I figured I should give them some time alone.”

“Oh,” Tamatoa muttered. Taken as he’d been with the tiny humans - he couldn’t remember ever having that much company in his life, really - he’d completely forgotten what both he and Maui had been waiting for. He instinctively turned back, were the profile of a cliff was barely visible in the dark. Long ago, it had been much higher than that… until a good chunk of it had collapsed on his mother, of course.

Once again, Moana seemed to guess exactly what was going through his mind. “That’s where she died, isn’t it?”

“… Yeah. Right by the cave we lived in.”

“What are you doing still here, then? She could show up any moment, and it’s a long way from the Underworld. It would be rather rude of you to make her wait,” Pilifeai muttered, and Tamatoa had to admit he kind of had a point.

“Right,” he said, but he didn’t move. He turned back to the human, trying to ignore the stab of nervousness. “What if she’s not coming?”

She tilted her head on one side, clearly taken aback. “What? Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because… because… I don’t know. What if she doesn’t show up?”

“Then she misses out. But I’m sure she’ll know better. If she came here all the way from Lalotai when she was alive for your sake, then–”

“But she could have come earlier, right? And Gran, too. Your grandmother came back for you. Why didn’t they? They knew where I was. I stayed here for a long time,” Tamatoa asked, but of course he knew that the human couldn’t possibly have an answer to that. He would have to ask his mother when she showed up. If she showed up. How long should he wait before he decided she just was not going to–

“Tamatoa! Look!”

He turned just in time to see exactly what she was pointing at: there was something out at sea, something translucent moving beneath the surface and heading straight where the entrance to the cave was. It disappeared from sight only moments later, hidden by one of the sides of the cliff, but it was enough for him to guess exactly what was it he’d just seen.

“Well,” Pilifeai spoke up the next moment, still sprawled across Moana’s shoulders. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor after all, you dense crustacean. Go and ask her. And possibly let me know what she said, because I’m dying to know more and the human here is a complete spoilsport.”

“Oh, am I?”

“I stand by what they said.”

“Looks like someone is going to stay this size for a while longer.”

“Uuugh. I hate you. And what are you staring at, crab? Are you going or not? Because–”

“Moana? Are you there?”

A man’s voice rang out, causing Moana to turn and Pilifeai to immediately hide under her hair. If he squinted, Tamatoa could see the shadow of someone standing not too far away from one of the fires.

“Coming, dad,” she called back, and reached to give Tamatoa’s pincer a pat. “Come on, just go. Don’t make her wait.”

“But…” Tamatoa paused, unable to voice the thought that had crossed his mind - what if she doesn’t like what she sees? - but of course Moana guessed exactly what he was thinking. She always did. He was starting to wonder if it was magic, or if he was just that predictable.

“No buts. I’m sure she’ll be so happy to see you.”

“I… well, of course she’ll be happy to see me! Who wouldn’t right?” Tamatoa muttered, huffing. “I was just… nevermind. I’m going. I’ll uh… see you in the morning,” he added quickly, and turned back to walk into the ocean before he lost his nerve.

He still remembered the way to his old cave very well, so much so that he needed no light to guide him as he walked across the ocean floor towards it. And it wasn’t a very long walk either but, for some reason, it seemed to stretch on for a long time.

***

“He just kept singing! We thought it would never end! Please, tell me this is not something he does all the time!”

Moana tried to ignore the way Pilifeai was snickering while hidden beneath her hair - she would need to have a very convincing talk with him later, to make sure he wouldn’t report that conversation to Tamatoa - and smiled a little sheepishly.

“Well, no all the time,” she said a bit tentatively. “Just… often, if given the chance. But if it helps, it’s easy to distract him. If he’s about to sing, diverting his attention on something else usually works. Show him something shiny, talk to him about something else entirely. He’d probably like that. He hasn’t had much company until now.”

Her father gave a long sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the gods,” he muttered. Beside him, her mother looked equally relieved. “I’ll let the others know. I don’t think we can withstand another day like this.”

“Oh, come on! I can’t have been that bad!” Moana said, getting a deadpan look from her mother.

“The children kept going on singing for hours after he stopped. Hours.”

“… Ah. Well, they’re kids. You know,” she said, inwardly thankful Maui had taken her to the other side of the island the moment Tamatoa had announced he’d start singing. Speaking of Maui, Moana though, he still wasn’t back. Was he still with his mother, or had she left? Maybe he needed some time on his own. And maybe so would Tamatoa, after it was all said and do–

“Well. I suppose the fact he saved your life is a good reason to be patient… if that is indeed what happened,” her father’s voice rang out, causing Moana to cringe. She’d almost forgotten how she hadn’t told them all the details of the journey to her people, and now she got a distinct feeling Tamatoa had done just that. In song form.

“Right. About that, there were… a couple of close calls,” she admitted, fervently hoping Tamatoa hadn’t gone into too much detail.

Fat chance.

“You actually went and threw a rock at the goddess of Death?”

Among other things, Moana thought, but she knew better than saying as much aloud. “I had sort of ran out of options to catch her attention. But all went well,” she added quickly, causing her father to groan and her mother to sigh before she reached to take her hand.

“Moana. Do you think you can just… stay with us on the island for a time? Maybe a few turns of the moon without getting involved with deranged deities?” she asked, a hopeful note in her voice. In the flickering light of the fire they were sitting around, Moana really noticed for the first time how tired she looked, like she hadn’t gotten a full night of sleep in a while.

But of course she hadn’t: despite Moana’s efforts to sugarcoat it, it had been clear that the journey she was getting into could be very dangerous, because at sea any shift of the weather can become deadly. Of course they had worried for her: that was what parents do. How many times had they looked out at sea, hoping to see her boat at the horizon?

Trying to ignore a slight pang of guilt, Moana smiled and held back her hand. “Of course. I love being here with all of you. I’m sorry I ran off again so quickly. I missed you a lot.”

“Oh, dear. We missed you too, so much.”

“Awww!”

“… What was that?”

“What was what?” Moana asked innocently, casually reaching back to give Pilifeai a sharp poke through her hair. The lizard was smart enough to mute the resulting yelp.

“I thought I heard–”

“I didn’t hear a thing. Dad, tell me how things have been going! I have yet to see so much of this new island. How are you getting on with the harvest?”

“Rather well, actually! We found this spot just east from here that was perfect. I’ll show you first thing in the morning. Actually, I’d like to hear your opinion on this…”

***

“If you want my opinion–”

“But I don’t want your opinion! I have never in my life or death asked for your opinion! Why are you so obsessed with giving it anyway?”

“There’s no need to be rude. I’m sure he’ll be here, sooner or later. Unless he forgot where the Manaia told him to wait, or forgot where this island even is, or is stuck somewhere because he saw something shiny and his attention span is what it is. I would put none of it past him.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my son holding off Hine-Nui-Te-Po. And remind me again which one of you went to have a stroll on an undersea volcano.”

“Hmph. Now that was uncalled for - that volcano had been inactive for so long I had no idea it was even one. And before you get too smug, may I remind you…“

Whatever his grandmother said next was lost to Tamatoa, because he was not listening, not really. Standing in shallow water, shrouded in darkness, he could only stare at the departed spirits of his mother and grandmother, bickering only steps away from the entrance of the cave he’d been brought up in.

Otherworldly spirit glow thing aside, his grandmother - had she just invited herself over? But of course she had, it was the sort of thing she’d do - was everything like he remembered her: even more massive than himself, her shell darker than his own and mottled with black, looking all the world like she’d been cut out of stone. What he couldn’t tear his eyes from, however, was his mother.

He had very vague memories of her; it had been so long. If he focused, he remembered vaguely her bioluminescence in the dark, the occasional nudge from her antennae, and little else. Now he could tell that yes, she was smaller than he was now, her skin and shell several shades lighter. Her pincers were entirely missing, the skin heavily scarred where her arms should have been - if that could be called skin, really, because he wasn’t really sure what spirits were made of. They made ripples in the water as they moved, though, so he supposed they had to be sort of corporeal. Maybe he should ask.

He would have, if only he could make himself speak. Instead, he took a hesitant step forward - and one of his legs slipped on an unstable boulder beneath the water, causing him to stagger for a moment and raise splashes of water.

“… And besides I didn’t see you making it to my ag– huh? Who’s there?”

His grandmother suddenly turned in his direction, eyes narrowing to see through the dark, causing Tamatoa to inwardly cringe. For one absurd moment, it felt like he’d been caught with his pincers in the clam jar all over again.

“I know someone is there!” she spoke up again, and took a couple of steps forward. “Tamatoa? Is that you?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to croak a ‘yes’, but he stopped himself just on time, frowning. Wait a moment, he thought, that wasn’t right. He was supposed to make a cool entry, wasn’t he? Something impressive. Why had he just rushed to the meeting point without thinking? He could at least have come up with something to say, or maybe even a musical number. Really, just showing up like that would make a really bad first impression. He had to think of something impressive to say or do, and he couldn’t think of anything to say, so he did the only thing he could think of on the spot: he turned on his bioluminescence.

In the moonless night it seemed even brighter than usual; it was enough to make them pause and stare, which made him feel just a touch smug. Alright, maybe a bit more than a touch. Except that his mother spoke after a moment, and the smugness disappeared because yes, the light show was great and all, but he still had no idea what to say.

“… Tamatoa?” she called out, taking a few steps towards him.

All right, all right. Don’t panic. Play it cool.

“Yeah. I mean, of course! Who else could it be? I am… the only one left, right? Unless some other dead crab is out and about, I guess, but I never saw any around, so while it’s not technically impossible… huh. I mean. Yeah. That’d be me,” he babbled, mentally kicking himself for sounding like a complete idiot. Then his mother stopped in front of him, and it took him a conscious effort not to step back.

What if she doesn’t like what she sees?

I’m sure she’ll be so happy to see you.

For a few, unnerving moments, she just stared; she had to look up to him, but somehow Tamatoa still felt really, really small. Then her antennae were touching his face - the touch was really odd, sort of corporeal and sort of not, but definitely there - and the wide-eyed look faded into a grin that looked oddly familiar.

“Oh, look at you!” she exclaimed, sounding absolutely delighted, and took a few steps back. “You’re a lot bigger than your father ever was!”

“That might be because you ate that idiot when he was half his age. Like most most males who actually mated,” Tupuna’s voice rang out somewhere behind her, but she seemed to take absolutely no notice: she was already circling Tamatoa, as though to properly size him up. She paused for a moment, and frowned.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Ah. That, er… that was lost in battle. But I won in the end! Absolutely!” he added quickly, and the grin was back on his mother’s face like it had never faded. She turned to look at his grandmother, her face the very picture of smugness. That, too, looked eerily familiar.

“Hah! So much for being a runt, huh, mother?”

There was a sigh, and Tamatoa turned to see Tupuna approaching. Her glow turned the water around her to molten silver. “Fine, fine. I get it. I was wrong,” she conceded, and turned to look at him before uttering the closest thing to a compliment she was capable to think up. “I have to admit, you did get quite a bit bigger than I thought you ever would.”

“And look at the pincers - he could grind every single crab I’ve met to dust!”

“I, er… thanks? I mean - of course I could!” Tamatoa immediately corrected himself, and grinned. With the sense of wonder fading, he found he really liked how that meeting was going. “Shame there aren’t any around for me to show it, but I’ve been keeping myself busy. You know, slowing down the sun, beating up the occasional monster, the occasional demon, a goddess, things like that. I usually do that on Tuesdays, but–”

“All right, enough. Don’t go too far, Tinytoa,” his grandmother cut him off, and sneered at his offended look. “Oooh, look at that. You still pout like you used to.”

“I’m not pouting! And… and I’m not tiny! Come on!”

“Hah! And you still say the same thing, too. But this old lady is still bigger than you are, you know,” she pointed out, flicking her antennae at him like she used to in life. “Plus, I am your grandmother. I get to call you whatever I want.”

“But–”

“No buts. Don’t talk back to your grandmother, kid.”

“I am five thousand years old!”

“Cute. We’ll talk about this again when you’re past fifteen-thousand.”

“Mom!”

“Oh, stop teasing him,” his mother muttered, rolling her eyes. “Keep that for Ngaire, Ngaio and just about everyone else.”

“Hmm. Fair enough. Shame we didn’t bump into them on our way out, because I’d have loved to have a few words with them before leaving.”

… Wait. Tamatoa had heard those names before. “What, you mean those two old hags I met at Manawa-Tane?” he asked, causing Tīaka to snort.

“Yes, them. They sauntered down in the Underworld, pleasant as eels stuck between one’s teeth, talking complete nonsense about how I should have tried for another clutch. I can’t wait to mention to them what you’ve–”

“So it was nonsense, right?”

Tamatoa had blurted out the question without thinking, and found himself trying to shrink a little when both of them paused and turned to look at him, blinking as though they had just heard him speaking in a foreign language. “I-I mean… what they said about, you know…” Tamatoa paused, making a vague gesture with his claw. “How you should have, uh, discarded me and… that I was kind of a waste? I mean, of course I know they were absolutely wrong, you know, never doubted it for a moment! But I was wondering, if you agree… well. You agree, right? That it wasn’t true at all?”

For a moment, Tīaka just stared at him in silence. Finally, her eyes narrowed. “Is that precisely what they said?”

“Uh… yes. They also called you an idiot.”

“… They’re dead.”

Tupuna snorted. “Of course they’re dead. We all are.”

“You know what I mean,” her daughter said drily, and looked back at Tamatoa. “Wait. You didn’t believe that, did you?”

“Wha– nooo, absolutely not!” Tamatoa immediately protested, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling that she could read the truth on his face, clear as day. “I know I’m absolutely amazing, so why should I believe them?” he added, and grinned, pointing at himself with a bioluminescent claw. “They were probably just jealous of all this magnificence.”

His grandmother sighed. “Oh gods, he does take after his father. Your looks and his brains,” she muttered, earning himself an unimpressed look from her daughter. Still, it was on Tamatoa that Tīaka turned her attention to, taking a few steps closer.

“All right. I want you to listen now and listen well, because I’m only going to say this once,” she said, and something about her stare seemed to glue Tamatoa on the spot. For the second time in minutes he felt very, very small. “I am dead, our entire species is gone - but you are here and I’m not even remotely sorry. My only regret is that I was unable to save your siblings as well. That is all. If I could go back to having no claws and just one hatched egg, I’d do everything I have done all over aga– no, scratch that. I probably wouldn’t have gone out on a stroll that day if I’d known a cliff would crash down on me. But as far as you’re concerned, there is nothing I would change. Is that clear?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth, but for a moment he was unable to speak. His eyes turned towards his grandmother, who shrugged. “What she said,” she muttered curtly. That was probably as far as she’d go with reassurances, but it was already a lot more than Tamatoa would have expected from the old battle axe, and he supposed it would do. He looked back at his mother and swallowed a couple of times before he could croak an answer.

“Crystal,” he replied, and his mother’s expression melted in a grin.

“Great,” she said, one antenna ficking at his own. “With that out of the way, we have a lot to catch up with. What have you been up to?”

Well, now that was going to take a while to get through. Good thing, Tamatoa thought, that he was really good at talking about himself for hours on end.

And he did talk for hours, through the entire night right until dawn, trying his best to recall all of his coolest moments and maybe exaggerate a detail or two. His grandmother hardly interrupted him - nothing short of a miracle, really - while his mother listened to each word with rapt attention, just the kind of attention he liked.

It would be only later, when both of them had left to return to the Underworld with the promise to visit again, that Tamatoa realized something: taken as they were by him, neither of them seemed to have even noticed the gold embedded in his shell.

***

[Back to Chapter 17]

[On to Epilogue]

#moana waialiki #maui #tamatoa #moana #oceania

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