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pengychan · 7 years

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Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 12

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. We all knew this was coming.

Also, the whole Giant Headless Warrior Guy thing is based on the fact that, in an early version of Moana, Tamatoa was supposed to be a giant headless warrior from an Oceanic myth. I tried and failed to know more about said myth, and eventually decided to borrow him for the fic because hey, why not.

***

Losing his fishhook had felt all the world like losing a limb.

When the gods had created it and given it to him to mark his passage to adulthood - he’d been a boy barely grown, really, but so very certain he was ready to carve his way in the world and so damn insistent about it than even Tagaloa had to give in - Maui had felt whole.

Before, he’d been an abandoned boy the Ocean and the gods had taken pity on and gifted with immortality; with that in his hand, however, he was so much more. He was Maui - shapeshifter, demigod of wind and sea. He was powerful. He was strong. He had the power to to accomplish feats humans could only dream of, and the humans he returned: he had been a weak and powerless newborn when he’d been thrown into the sea to drown, but certainly humans would love him now that he could do so much for them, wouldn’t they?

They would, and they did. For centuries to come, and then for thousands of years, Maui’s name became as well known as the name of the good winds, of the good currents that brought voyagers home, as the stars in the night sky. He was their hero, the one who did more for them than any of the gods ever had.

He lifted the sky for them. He pulled island out of the oceans for them. He harnessed winds, he slowed down the sun, he gifted them the secret to make fire for themselves so that they would no longer need to approach volcanoes for flames. He gave them the coconut tree, an endless source of food, for the days their nets failed to catch enough fish; he fought monsters for them, to keep them from harm.

Until the day he’d failed them, because he had failed to realize which monster he should guard them from. And then he’d failed them again, when he’d believed a warning would be enough to keep Tamatoa from striking again and he’d turned out to be so, so wrong.

But maybe he’d been wrong all along. He’d thought he could protect humans from all harm, but the truth was that he could not: there were so many dangers, too many, and he couldn’t be everywhere at once. His power alone was not enough: humans should have the means to protect themselves when he couldn’t help, a power of their own. And Maui thought he knew precisely where he could find it. He knew how to reach it, too, and how to get away quickly - he had thought of everything.

Except of the part where a shrieking demon of earth and fire would appear out of nowhere and strike him right out of the sky, of course. He’d failed to account for that bit, and he’d paid for it dearly: stuck in a deserted island, the heart of Te Fiti and his fishhook both gone. Without the familiar weight of the fishhook in his hand, without the power to shapeshift, he was as good as maimed. Crippled. Powerless, as he’d been as a newborn.

And, as time passed - days, months, years, centuries - without anybody coming for him, Maui knew he’d been abandoned yet again, or forgotten, despite everything he’d done for humans. After all, what worth did he have to them now that he was powerless? None, that was it. He could do nothing now. He was nothing.

Without the hook, I am nothing.

***

“They told him he was what ?”

“A waste. Can you lower your voice? I can hear you just fine.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just… why would anybody say something like that to someone else?”

“Giant crabs weren’t known for their social skills or tact, you know. They did have a tendency to say whatever went through their mind, which usually wasn’t a lot. It might have had something to do with their extinction, come to think of it.”

Moana sighed, and turned towards the beach. Pilifeai had gone right back into the ocean, but with the Ponaturi unable to leave the caves during the day they were in no rush to sail away from the island - and Tamatoa in particular seemed to have no intention to move at all. He was sprawled at the shore, looking at his reflection in the water and humming to himself what sounded like a rather depressing tune even from a distance. “He’s taking it really badly, huh?”

“Yeah, worse than I’d have thought. He didn’t even eat the bodies,” Maui muttered. For a moment Moana thought he was trying to make light of the situation, but he looked perfectly serious. She took a mental note to never ask in detail about giant crab habits when it came to dealing with the dead, and turned back to Tamatoa instead. She tried to imagine for a moment what it had to be like - believing to be the last of his species, finding out it wasn’t true, receiving nothing but demeaning comments from his kind and then finding himself the only one left again, all in a matter of a few hours. She found she couldn’t: it was just too far from anything she’d ever experienced.

“Maybe you should talk to him?”

Maui’s voice snapped her from her thoughts. “Huh? Me?”

A shrug. “Well, why not? You’re the crab whisperer. Or monster whisperer. Or goddess-turned-destructive-demon whisperer. Whatever you want to call it, you’re better at this kind of thing than I could ever be. I’d probably just say all the wrong things.”

Well, Moana thought, at least on that one point, he wasn’t wrong. She glanced back at Tamatoa, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and walked up to him slowly. He may very well not want to talk, in which case she’d leave him alone for a while longer, but at least she had to try. The more she approached, the clearer the words Tamatoa was gloomily singing to himself became.

“I’m too shiny, I’m the sunrise on the surface of the sea. Look at me, you see, I’m so shiny…”

“Hey.”

Her voice caused him to trail off and fall silent. He didn’t move at all except for his eyestalks, which turned towards her just slightly. He gave her an apathetic look before resting his chin down on his claws. “… Hey,” he muttered, voice flat. “I take it Maui told you. Must have loved getting his payback.”

“He didn’t mean to get any payback and you know it,” Moana pointed out, sitting on the sand and putting a hand on his claw. “We’re just worried.”

“If you try telling me something your grandma would say, I swear I’m gonna vomit.”

“I won’t. What would yours say?”

Tamatoa’s shell rose and fell in a massive shrug. “That I shouldn’t give a second thought about anything others do or say, probably. That was her answer to everything,” he said flatly.

“Well, then maybe you should listen–”

“Not to you, I won’t,” Tamatoa cut her off, sulking. “Let’s be real, this kind of crap is easy for you two to babble about, isn’t it? Taken in by the gods. Chosen by the ocean. I had to go and try to make myself special on my own. No one ever chose me.”

Moana shook her head. “That’s not true. Someone did.”

That caused Tamatoa to roll his eyes. “Oh, yes. My mother. Who was an idiot, by the way. Didn’t you get the memo?”

“That’s what they said. And you just believe them? What about your grandmother - do you think she was an idiot, too?”

That seemed to hit a nerve, because Tamatoa tensed up. There were a few moments of silence before he scowled, entirely avoiding her question. “Couldn’t those two just stay alive for one more night? If they’d seen me with more treasure, they’d have changed their mind about me.”

If what Pilifeai had told her about giant crabs was anything to go by that was not the case - if anything, it would have probably just made them think he was a complete oddball. But telling him so would do him no good, and she decided against it. “Well, it was their loss, wasn’t it?”

An eyestalk turned back towards her, antennae perking up just a fraction. “Was it?”

Moana rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? Of course it was.”

“They thought I was a waste–”

“Well, they were wrong. Whose judgment would you trust, your grandmother’s, or that of two old hags who didn’t even know you?” she asked, and smiled a bit when his antennae twitched, perking up some more. “Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that grandmothers have this annoying habit of being right most of the time. She and your mother had a choice between the home of their ancestors and giving you a chance, and they chose you. They thought you were worth it. I think they had the right idea, and so does Maui. We have seen what you can do. Those two back there just had no clue.”

Tamatoa blinked at her a couple of times, as though absorbing the information, then finally lifted his head. “Well, of course they had the right idea,” he said haughtily, like he never had a single doubt about it, and Moana mentally patted herself on the back. “It’s just annoying that they didn’t realize it, you know?”

Moana shrugged. “Well, since they were so unpleasant, they didn’t really deserve to see all of this, did they?” she added, gesturing towards Tamatoa’s glittering shell. He followed her gaze, and his expression finally broke into a grin.

“Hah! True enough. Why should they get to see something so shiny? They probably had no taste, anyway.”

“See, that’s the spirit,” Moana said, and glanced up at Tamatoa’s shell. “So, what’s the story behind these?”

“Huh?”

“Your treasure. You said you know all of it like the back of your claw. Mind to tell me more?”

Tamatoa seemed amused. “Trying to get me to talk about my treasure now?”

“Yep. In song form or not.”

That finally got something out of him that resembled a laugh. “Hah! I’ll have to pass. Not that I wouldn’t love to put my amazing voice to some use, but I don’t improvise, you know - this kind of thing’s got to be rehearsed.”

With a terrible effort not to laugh at the thought of Tamatoa rehearsing his musical number in his lair in case anybody wandered in it, Moana let her gaze shift to his shell again - and it paused on something that seemed to stand out from the rest: a greenstone the same color as the heart of Te Fiti, but carved in a figure-of-eight, serpent-like shape, with a bird’s beak in the upper half. “What is that?”

Tamatoa turned his eyestalks to follow her gaze. “Oh, that? It’s a carving of the Manaia.”

“The Manaia?”

“Yeah, this being who used to be a messenger between the world of the living and that of the dead. They kind of disappeared about a thousand years ago, though. No one knows where they went. Shame, because it looks like we could use their help, since Maui’s plan to get into the Underworld isn’t even a plan. Anyway, that’s a pretty stone, but just a stone. Oh, but that lamp right next to it? That’s another story altogether! So, I was not too far away from Cape Reinga, looking for this shipwreck I’d heard about…”

***

Maui had absolutely no clue what Moana had even told him, but by the time they sailed off Tamatoa seemed in good spirits and surprisingly cooperative, hardly even protesting when it was time to shrink him so that he could travel with them by boat. He didn’t even ask again to eat the chicken or the pig, though Maui suspected that was mostly due to his snack back in Manawa-Tane: he just lay down at the front of the boat, and seemed to be rather enjoying the breeze and sprays of water.

“I just told him the truth,” Moana said with a shrug at the quizzical glance Maui gave him while Tamatoa was out of earshot. “That whatever they said wasn’t worth a thought.”

As far as Maui could tell, that was a message Tamatoa had been getting for a long time – not least from his grandmother – without it actually getting through his thick head. That Moana had succeeded where everyone else had failed was remarkable, but at that point Maui expected nothing less of her. So he laughed. “And that’s why you’re the crab whisperer,” he said, and turned to call out to Tamatoa. “So, the Taniwha! Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and few of them good,” Tamatoa muttered, and glanced at Moana. “Maybe she should stay away. They have a thing for human women. Not a good sort of thing,” he added. Maui shrugged when Moana’s gaze shifted on him.

“They’re treacherous bastards. They look kinda like men, kinda like reptiles–“

“It’s more three quarter reptile,” Tamatoa cut him off. “Scales, tails and all. They have arms, but that’s where the resemblance ends. They’re even uglier than you humans,” he added, only to pause when Moana raised an eyebrow. He frowned for a moment, then blinked. “Oh, wait! That's not a nice thing to say, right?”

… Well, look at that, he was learning. Maui supposed that being on the receiving end of that kind of careless talk had helped. Not that he thought Moana especially cared about judgment on her looks coming from a giant crab, but still. Predictably enough, Moana shrugged and just steered the boat. “It’s okay. I’m more concerned about the Taniwha. I am still coming with you,” she added, trying down one of the ropes. “But I must know what we’re facing first.”

“Humanoid reptiles,” Maui said, sitting down and grabbing a coconut. He cracked it open easily against his knee, kept one half and handed the other to Tamatoa. “Nasty bastards, a bigger than the Ponaturi. Bigger than most humans, really. As Tamatoa mentioned they’re not one of the best things a human woman could meet, so–”

“Spear with me at all times.”

“You got it.”

Tamatoa bristled. “Won’t let them come close enough to make you use it. Right, Maui?”

Truth be told Maui was sort on counting on watching Moana kick some Taniwha butt, because he’d seen what she could do, but she was still one human while they were a demigod with shapeshifting powers and a giant crab monster, so he supposed it would be best to be on the safe side and not let it come to that. “You bet. They live in this island a couple of days of navigation from here, and the currents there are quite bad. They stay near dangerous currents so that they can attack whoever shipwrecks. We’ll need to be careful when we approach the island.”

“Yeah, and also mind the giant headless warrior guy,” Tamatoa said thought a mouthful of coconut. Moana’s eyebrows went up to her hairline.

“Giant headless warrior?” she repeated, but this time all Maui could give her was a look of confusion to match her own.

“… I’ve got nothing,” he admitted, and turned to Tamatoa. “What giant headless warrior?”

“What, are you blind or– oooh, wait! Right, by the time it appeared you were already stuck… wherever you were stuck. It actually got there around you messed everything up,” he added, and took another bite from the coconut.

Maui decided to ignore the jab and just focused on the issue at hand. “So, what about this guy?” he asked. Tamatoa chewed and swallowed before replying.

“It’s just what it sounds like. A giant headless warrior, with spear and all, guarding the Taniwha’s islands and attacking whoever comes close. Ships or otherwise. It just stands up from the bottom of the sea and is made of… stone, or something. I didn’t get close enough to get a good look. The Taniwha had nothing I wanted at that point and I didn’t need trouble. Oh, also it’s headless. Hence why it’s the Headless Warrior Guy.”

“Original,” Maui said drily. “Any idea where it comes from?”

“Nope,” Tamatoa replied with a shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. Word is that the Taniwha have its head, though, and that’s why it follows their orders and patrols their coasts.”

“So we’re gonna have to fight it to get to the island.”

Tamatoa shrugged. “Or the human can shrink it,” he said, nodding to Moana. “Seems easier.”

Maui made a face. “But far less fun.”

“Hey, she can turn it to full size after we get my treasure back, and then we can fight it,” Tamatoa pointed out, causing Maui to grin. He hadn’t thought about it at all.

“That’s a very good poin–”

“What if we recover its head instead?” Moana spoke up, causing both of them to turn and glance at her like she’d just grown a second head of her own. She shrugged. “Well, if that is how they control it, it might be worth taking the head as well when we take the treasure, if we find it. If we give it back to its owner, it will have no reason to keep guarding them.”

Maui thought about it for a few moments, then grinned and turned to look at Tamatoa. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I think? Because what I’m thinking now are variants on jokes about losing one’s head and how I can work them into a song.”

“… That, too. But most of all, it could turn against the Taniwha when they lose control over it. I know I would be pissed if someone made me work as their patrol guy for a thousand years,” Maui pointed out, and Tamatoa’s expression immediately brightened.

“Oh! That would be fun! Yes, I like your idea, human!”

Moana crossed her arms. “You know, it was more a matter of doing the right thing by freeing it than having it beating the crap out of the Taniwha.”

“Well, why not both?”

“What he said. Let’s do both.”

“But—”

“It’s two on one, babe!”

“Bwoook!”

“Three on one,” Tamatoa corrected himself with a satisfied look at the latch leading to the hold. Moana sighed, and glanced down at Pua. The pig looked up at her, and then went to stand beside her, looking warily at Tamatoa. The crab huffed and crossed his pincers. “Three on two. We still win. Besides, it’s up to the guy what it does once it gets its head back.”

“It could attack us again,” Maui commented, unable keep a hopeful note out of his voice, and gave a sheepish grin at Moana’s raised eyebrow. It was very easy to guess what she was thinking: how he’d almost drowned after the Kakamora gained the upper hand in the fight he’d thrown himself into. “Sorry, can’t help it. A fish can’t change its scales.”

“Unlike me,” Tamatoa pointed out. “I can change my shell if I need to.”

“That was a figure of speech, Crabby.”

A shrug. “I know. Just thought I’d draw attention to my shell, in case– wait, what are you–”

“Turning you off,” Maui replied, and reached down to scratch the spot between Tamatoa’s eyestalks before the crab could pull away. Just like when Moana had done it, Tamatoa went still after the first scratch, everything about him - eyestalks, antennae, pincers, limbs - going entirely limp. His protest turned into a few slurred words that sounded a lot like ‘I hate you’ before his eyes fell shut and he just lay down on the floor, snoring lightly. Maui grinned, pulling his hand back. “Have I already said I wish I’d known this trick for a few thousand years ago?”

“Yes. Consider it my thanks for teaching me how to sail,” Moana said, causing him to laugh.

“Hah! A fair trade,” he said, and went to help Moana counterbalance the boat - but not before moving Tamatoa a little more to the centre of it, to make sure he wouldn’t fall into the ocean at a sudden roll of the boat.

***

When they came within sight of the small group of islands the Taniwha lived in, a storm was brewing to the west. Moana estimated that it would be on them within the hour, and Maui’s conclusion was precisely the same: going straight for the Taniwha would be a seriously bad idea, because it could result in getting stuck on the island until the storm had passed, or worse yet being locked in a fight with a giant headless warrior when it came. It would be best to stop somewhere else, wait for the storm to be over with, and then move again.

"How about there?” Moana asked, gesturing to their left. There was a tiny island some distance away from the others, showing no sign of being inhabited. It was very small and far from ideal, but there seemed to be a cave and it would make a decent place to stay dry and keep the boat ashore during the storm.

Maui nodded. “It looks good to me,” he conceded. “The Taniwha live on the southern side of their island anyway, unless something has changed. They’re unlikely to see us staying there. Heard that, Crabcake?” he added, turning back.

Tamatoa had demanded Moana to turn him back his usual size as soon as they were close enough to the islands. The sea was shallow enough for him to talk with most of his upper body above the water, and he’d claimed he wanted to stretch his legs – though Moana suspected he wanted to take a look at the bottom of the ocean to see if he could find any stray piece of treasure. So far, he seemed to be having no luck.

“Yes, yes, you’ll be on the island,” he muttered with a shrug. “I’ll get there later. I’ll take a look around meanwhile.”

“Don’t get too close to the main island,” Maui reminded him. “Last thing we need is having to fight this giant headless warrior in the middle of a storm.“

"Hah! Don’t worry. Even if I stumbled into it, I’m sure I could handle– HEY!”

His last words were covered by his own cry, by the huge splash as he was suddenly dragged underwater, by the loud groan of stone sliding against stone. The sudden wave caused by his fall caused the boat to rock violently, and Moana could barely manage to keep it straight, one arm shooting out to grab Pua before he could fall into the sea. Something emerged from the bottom of the ocean, something huge that had been lying in wait until someone – Tamatoa – had stepped close enough to be grabbed.

Above them stood what looked like a gigantic headless statue, twice as tall as Tamatoa - except that it wasn’t just a statue, on account of the fact it was moving. It had thrown Tamatoa entirely off-balance, and all Moana could see of the crab in the churning water were legs uselessly kicking up in the air, the rest of him upside down and submerged. The headless warrior stood before him, on him, one foot on his abdomen to keep him down; it did not even flinch when one of Tamatoa’s claws closed on its leg, the stone not even scratched. It just lifted a huge, long spear high above his head, tip gleaming in the sunlight, ready to bring it down on his trapped foe.

“Maui!” she cried out over Pua’s terrified squeals, struggling to keep the boat from capsizing, unable to let go of the ropes long enough to even use her bracelet. But she didn’t need to: Maui had seen everything as well, and he wouldn’t just stand by to watch.

“You get the boat away from here!” he called out, and leaped. It was an impressive leap, something that almost looked like flying, and with a cry he brought his hook down against the stone spear. It was a terrible blow, the kind that could shatter mountain peaks, but the spear didn’t shatter. Still, the blow had been enough: it was knocked aside, and the huge being holding it was thrown off- balance.

With a groan of stone grinding on stone, the headless warrior took several steps back not to fall – which in turn gave Tamatoa enough time to get up. For a moment Moana feared he’d be unable to, that he’d stay stuck on his back and vulnerable, but being in the water seemed to help. Within instants Tamatoa was back upright, claws raised and looking extremely displeased to say the very least.

“You could handle it, huh?” Maui called out, half laughing, a moment before turning into a hawk in mid-air and attacking the headless warrior again. The being was forced to step back again, and raise the spear in defense.

“Hey, you were beaten by the Kakamora!” Tamatoa protested, causing Maui to laugh again.

“Then we’re even! C'mon, help me out! You woke it up, help me put it back to sleep!”

“Oh. Right! Coming!”

They both were on the headless guardian a moment later, but Moana didn’t get to see much of the fight: she focused entirely on getting as far away as possible, to the small island they had spotted earlier. It was a struggle, the fight raising waves that threatened to overturn her boat, but she managed to finally get far enough to keep it steady, and turned to look.

Back in the Vault, when they had fought together against the demon she’d accidentally turned into a giant, the battle had been rather spectacular but also rather short: they had gained the upper hand right away. But now Moana could tell that things were different, the huge headless warrior holding its own, easily matching Maui’s blows and seemingly unaffected by Tamatoa’s claws. It didn’t seem to be gaining the upper hand, either, but it wasn’t giving an inch and the storm was approaching quickly.

Well guys, you had your fun. Got to end it now.

Moana lifted her hand, the one with the bracelet, and pointed it towards the giant. “Iti haere!” she cried out.

Nothing happened.

“… Huh?” Moana blinked, looking down at the bracelet. Why hadn’t it worked? Had she pointed wrong? No, she was sure her fingers was pointed straight at–

A painfully loud screech snapped her form her thoughts, causing her to look up again. Maui had shifted into his hawk form and was flying up and up towards the sun, away from the headless warrior and from… wait, where was Tamatoa?

The stone guardian seemed to be wondering precisely the same thing, for it stopped trying to strike Maui with his spear - how could it even see him without a head? - and tried to turn, spear raised. Moana could barely see something, a golden gleam right below the water, and she guessed Tamatoa had burrowed in the bottom of the ocean just one moment before Maui shrieked again, and struck.

He fell from the sky like an arrow, sunlight turning his feathers golden, almost too fast for Moana’s eye to follow… and definitely too fast for his foe to brace itself, or lift its weapon. Maui turned back at the very last instant, and struck the giant on its barnacle-encrusted chest with his hook, and all of his might.

It was not enough to injure the warrior, but it was enough to knock it back. It tried to keep standing, to step back and regain its footing, but it immediately tripped on something right behind it - something that rose up from underwater the next moment, knocking it entirely off its feet and into the churning sea.

Tamatoa.

“HAH! How do you like that?” the giant crab called out, but he didn’t stay to gloat: instead he moved quickly away from the stone being as it thrashed in the attempt to get up. “Don’t stand there, babe - got to get to the island!”

“But Maui–”

“He’s gonna keep it busy. C’mon, before it sees where we’re going!”

Moana did as she was told, not without first glancing back to see Maui, once again in his hawk form, was flying right above his struggling enemy. She could have sworn the hawk had winked at her the moment before turning into a whale and fall crashing down on the headless warrior, lifting up a wall of ocean water.

***

“Are you sure it didn’t see you getting here?”

“I told you, I turned into a fish and just swam here. It was still trying to get up after the whale treatment, anyway. And besides, it would already be here if it knew.”

“Maybe we got far enough for it to lose interest altogether.”

“Here’s hoping. We really don’t need to be fighting the guy out there with this storm going on.”

“I still think the fire was a bad idea. What if Headless Guy sees it?”

“It can’t see anything without a head or eyes, Crabby. It felt our presence somehow, and it could fight, but I really doubt it can see anything the way we do. Besides, some of us need to keep warm.”

“Right, right,” Tamatoa muttered, settling down in the back of the cave. It had turned out to be surprisingly large, enough for him to stand in and take a few steps. It was a bit of a tight fit, especially with Maui, the human and her pets huddled in front of the fire, but it would do. Sure, he didn’t need to be there - he could as well take shelter from the storm underwater - but he’d prefer to stick with them, for time being. He stayed still, listening to the wind picking up outside, the crashing waves and pounding rain. In the distance, there was thunder. “Do you think the storm is going to last for long?”

“Naah, it will be gone by the morning. Let’s just wait here.”

“I thought the Ocean was your buddy, human. Can’t it just stop the storm? Oh, or take down Headless Guy for us?”

“That’s… not how it works.”

“Some jerk you’ve got as a friend, then.”

“Relax, Crabcake. We won’t need the Ocean’s help to kick its butt.”

The human frowned slightly. “Are you sure there is no way to avoid it? It seemed to be giving you a lot of trouble,” she added, and glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist. “I wonder why it didn’t work…”

Maui shrugged. “You probably didn’t point it straight at it. It was moving, the boat was rocking… easy to get the aim wrong,” he said, and put another log in the fire. “You’ll get to try again tomorrow, at any rate. And if it doesn’t work, then Crabcake and I will just try harder to get it out of the way.”

Truth be told, Tamatoa wasn’t sure he could try beating it any harder than he already had: he’d given his best in the earlier fight and, even with Maui fighting alongside him, they had barely managed to incapacitate that thing for enough time to get away before the storm began. If the fight had carried on… he wasn’t as confident as Maui on the outcome.

“Or we could move on to look for the treasure elsewhere,” he suggested, and shifted a bit when Maui and Moana looked at him, exchanged a glance and then turned right back at him. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m scared or anything–”

“Of course not,” Maui said, just a bit too flatly.

“… But we could look elsewhere first to find the rest of the treasure?”

Maui shook his head. “I’d rather check the Taniwha’s island while we’re here. We don’t have many other leads at the moment. None at all, really. They were seen trading with Lalotai monsters at the Vault, so they could be the ones who have the hairpin.”

Oh. The hairpin.

“Right,” Tamatoa found himself saying. Truth be told, he’d completely forgotten about that stupid hairpin, and back at in Manawa-Tane… hey, wait a moment… ! “Hey, you didn’t bring it up at all in Manawa-Tane!” Tamatoa pointed out. “Didn’t even ask about it!”

Maui shrugged. “I looked and there was nothing that looked like a hairpin in the bunch. No real point in asking when I already knew the answer.”

Because it wasn’t there, Tamatoa thought. The Ponaturi didn’t have it. The Taniwha don’t have it. I do.

There was a pang of something in his chest, and he couldn’t really define it, but it was enough to make him turn back to his missing leg. The hairpin was there, hidden in a tiny gap between his carapace and what was left of the limb. It had been there all along - the thing Maui wanted the most, the thing the human had risked her life to help him get. The only bargaining chip he had to get them to help getting his treasure back.

Tamatoa’s eyes shifted back to Maui and the human, who were now trying to stifle laughter while they watched the chicken try to swallow a stone. Maybe, he reasoned, he didn’t need to keep holding onto it anymore. It was an ugly old thing anyway, and… and they would help him get the rest of his treasure even if he handed it over, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t have at the start, so he had been right in keeping it, but now maybe they’d help him regardless. No, of course they would. The human definitely would.

With their attention elsewhere, Tamatoa reached with one claw to pull the hairpin out of its hiding place. I just realized it was among the Ponaturi’s stuff, he would say. They would believe him, because of course they would - they trusted him, didn’t they? - and then they–

The crack of thunder boomed through the sky, shaking the earth itself, and that it was all it took. With a startled gasp, Tamatoa flinched… and lost his grip on the hairpin. It fell on the ground and, before he could even think of trying to catch it, it half-bounced, half-rolled across the stone floor - coming to rest in plain sight, a scant inch away from Maui’s foot.

***

“And so I was thinking, if the chicken came first– huh?”

It was a weak gleam of burnished gold in firelight that caught Maui’s eye. When he trailed off and looked down, he wasn’t too surprised to see something shiny next to him: of course, at some point, some of the shinies on Tamatoa’s shell would fall off. He still wasn’t entirely sure how the crab made them stick to his shell; it had never occurred him to ask.

And right there and then, it didn’t occur to him that there could be anything special about that tiny object. He didn’t even pay much attention to it: he just picked it up and called out. “Hey, careful there. No point in picking up all of your stuff if you start losing it piece by–”

“THAT’S NOT MINE!” Tamatoa blurted out, causing him to trail off. Maui blinked, glancing back at him. He was staring at him with the wide-eyed look of a cornered animal, and that confused him even more.

Had he not panicked, Maui would have just handed it back to him without a second look. But he did panic, and that changed everything.

“What are you talking about? It’s got to be yours. Didn’t it just fall off?”

Tamatoa worked his jaw for a moment, then he grinned - the most forced grin Maui had ever seen on his face. What was up with him all of a sudden? “YES! I mean– yes, of course it’s mine! Haha! Just, uh, got confused for a moment. Just hand it over and–”

“Wait.”

It was just one word, but it was spoken like an order. It caused Maui to still and Tamatoa to cringe, letting out a small strangled noise when Moana gently took the trinket from Maui’s hand. She held it up in the light of the fire, causing Maui to really pay attention to it for the first time. That was when he finally realized it wasn’t just a trinket. It was a hairpin - very old, very brittle, and not one he’d seen before. But he was sure he’d checked every single one–

Wait. Wait just a moment.

Maui tore his gaze away from the hairpin to look at Tamatoa, who seemed to be trying his best to shrink under his gaze. Realization dawned on him just as Moana spoke slowly, with the voice of someone who’s hoping against hope to be proven wrong but already knows it won’t be the case.

“… This is it, isn’t it?” she asked, looking up at Tamatoa. Her voice was barely audible through the sounds of the storm and, in the flickering light of the flames, hurt seemed etched in her every feature. Maui could only watch, feeling as though he’d been encased in ice. “How long have you had it?”

Tamatoa blinked quickly, and his eyes darted to the cave’s entrance as though he was trying to figure out if he could make a run for it. He could lie, deny that was the hairpin they were looking for, Maui knew; he could say he had just found it. But what would be the point? His reaction had already told them, loud and clear, all they needed to know.

“I… not long, honest! I… just since… I was gonna tell you, I…huh. Hey, what’s with the leaking? Human…?”

Moana stared back at him in silence, the hairpin in her hand and tears running down her face - the very picture of betrayal. That, more than the revelation itself, was what caused the ice encasing Maui’s mind to shatter. The cold dread and incredulity replaced by wonderfully familiar fury, he grabbed his hook and stood.

She trusted you. We trusted you. How could I make the same mistake again? How could I let her make it?

“YOU LIED!” Maui roared, stepping forward, the fishhook held right in his hand. “You had it all along!”

Tamatoa winced, but he tried to snap back. “You would have just taken it if I told you! You know you would have! I had already lost enough–”

“You stole it from my mother!”

“Maui?” Moana called out, standing up and trying to get in the way, but Maui didn’t hear her, hardly saw her. He moved her aside with a swipe of his arm, eyes fixed on Tamatoa - who, on the other hand, was quickly running out of room to retreat: the next instant, his rear was pressed against the wall of the cave. Huge claws were lifted up, but it was obvious that he knew perfectly how few chances he had to take on that fight and win. Of course he knew. They had been there before, and Maui had taken his leg.

Now maybe he’d take his head.

“Look, it was your fault that I lost my— Wait, wait, can we just– I would have told you–” Tamatoa blabbered, panic clearly starting to sink in. “Human? Human, say something!”

“Maui, please–” she tried, but Maui was beyond hearing her. He could feel blood rushing in his ears, anger thudding into his skull. All that time, he could have simply gone to Cape Reinga and summoned his mother. His family. He could have talked to them, and instead…!

“All this time, you lied to us!”

“No! I mean, I guess there was a tiny bit of omission there–”

“I saved your life, and YOU MADE US RISK OUR OWN JUST TO GET SOME GOLD BACK!” he screamed, and lifted his hook, ready to land a blow, all of his strength behind it. He would shatter his shell, he would obliterate that lying, slimy bast–

“I HAD NO CHOICE!” Tamatoa shrieked, claws reaching up to cover his head and eyes squeezing shut. “You don’t get it! I had to get my treasure back! I can’t be without it!”

Without the hook, I am nothing!

Maui’s fishhook froze in mid-air. He was aware, dimly, of the sounds of the storm outside; of Moana’s voice calling his name, of the weight of her hand on his back. But it all seemed so very distant, and even his anger was now beyond his reach. All of a sudden, Maui just felt tired. He drew in a long breath and lowered his fishhook, slowly. He turned, and held out a hand; Moana put the hairpin on it without another word.

Behind him, Tamatoa let one eye peer out from beneath a raised claw. “So, uh… we’re cool, right? You have the hairpin and look, I even polished– hey, wait, WAIT!” he protested, flinching back. There was simply no way Moana’s wooden oar striking him could possibly hurt him, but he still yelped when she let out a cry and struck him. “What’s gotten into–?”

“WHY?” Moana cut him off, lifting the oar again. She was scowling, but even so tears were still running down her face. “Why did you do it?”

“I told you, I needed you to help me find my treasure and–”

“We would have helped you regardless!”

“I know! I mean, no– I didn’t know! As in, I know now, but I didn’t before, you see?” Tamatoa babbled. “Look, can you… can you stop leaking? No harm’s done, babe, you have the hairpin and– hey! C’mon!” he protested when Moana let out another cry and struck him again and again with the oar.

“I. Can’t. Believe you!” she snapped, each word followed by a blow. “I thought you were– uuugh!” The oar fell with a clatter, and Moana reached to wipe her face with both hands. “I was such an idiot,” she growled, causing Tamatoa to blink down at her in clear confusion.

“No you’re not! I told you you’re the smart o–”

“I don’t care what you said,” she cut him off. Her voice shook for a moment, and the turned away, arms wrapped around herself as though she was cold. “I should have seen this coming. I was wrong about you. I’m done believing a single word you say.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that! I was just about to give you the hairpin!”

A scoff. “Oh, sure you were,” she muttered, refusing to turn.

“Honest! Look, I could have destroyed it–”

“So we’re supposed to thank you now?”

“No! I mean, that would be nice, but you don’t have to. It was a misunderstanding, all right?”

No answer.

“Hello? Did you hear– Oh, I see, you’re pretending not to hear me! Very mature! Maui, you tell her she’s overreac–”

“Enough.”

One word from Maui was enough to make Tamatoa suddenly fall silent and flinch back, as though reminded that Maui had just as many reasons as her, if not more, to be furious. And he was furious all right - just a cold sort of anger he was unfamiliar with, mixed with something else entirely that wasn’t too far away from sadness.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Maui said, his voice tight, “if you don’t want to lose yet another limb, you will leave now.”

“But–”

“I said now, bottom-feeder,” Maui snapped, causing Tamatoa to fall silent and his lost expression to turn into a scowl. “You know where the rest of your treasure is. That’s all you care about, isn’t it? So go get it. Or leave it where it is, return to Lalotai - I don’t care what you do. But whatever your next step is, you do it alone. Our ways part now. We’re going where we should have headed from the start.”

Tamatoa’s scowl deepened. “So what now, you go to Cape Reinga with that ugly hairpin and drag the human with you?”

“I’m dragging her nowhere. She can choose whether to come or go home. ”

“You know she’ll come with you, so much for being smart! You’re going to get yourselves killed - great way to get into the Underworld,” Tamatoa snapped, taking a step forward. “There is no way you can get past Hine-nui-te-pō, and you know it! You tried and failed, and she’ll kill you this time!”

“That is none of your concern,” Maui said sharply. “Or am I supposed to believe you care about what happens to us, after what you made us go through needlessly?”

That hit a nerve, causing Tamatoa to flinch back. “I… well, I…” he babbled, only to fall silent when Maui lifted his hook to point towards the cave’s entrance, where the storm raged.

“Leave.”

For a moment, Tamatoa didn’t say a word: he just kept still, eyes shifting from Maui to Moana. She was sitting now, still giving him her back, her pet pig in her arms. “Moana?” he tried again, his voice oddly small. She tensed, but didn’t or turn or answer, and Tamatoa turned back to Maui. Finally, he set his jaw and scowled.

“Fine. Get yourselves killed and see if I care,” he snapped, lifting a pincer to point it at them. “I’ll get my treasure back and throw a party in Lalotai and you won’t be invited because you’ll both be dead!” he added, and finally stomped out of the cave, narrowly avoiding to step on Maui in the process. Maui turned away with, saying nothing.

Neither him nor Moana turned to watch him leave, and they both missed his hesitation, the way he turned back to look at them for just one moment before he scowled again and marched out, alone, into the storm.

***

[Back to Chapter 11]

[On to Chapter 13]

#moana waialiki #maui #tamatoa #moana #oceania

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blapis-blazuli · 7 years

Note

Just curious- what are some of your favorite things about Tamatoa?

Hoo boy, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so this will be long and somewhat spoilers-y, so I hope you’re prepared for an info-dump. Also, apologies if I get sidetracked a bit. There’s a lot.

I think what initially drew me to Tamatoa was how out-of-place he seemed with the rest of the movie at first. Everyone else is either a human (or at least humanoid) or a non-speaking creature, and then here’s this giant talking crab monster with a song that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the soundtrack (that’s not to say that it’s a bad song though; I love it in every language I’ve heard it in so far), and with a voice that (at least I thought) had a more obvious accent than everyone else’s. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the rest of the movie, which is a good thing, but by the time the credits came up (along with his post-credits bit) I had to know what was up with him. (Aside from the whole “my fave is a crab” deal; I’ve had a love for decapods ever since Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald gave us Corphish, and I’d already picked out coconut crabs as a favorite because of Crabrawler, so that part at least made sense to me.) I ended up looking up his song on YouTube and listened to it again, only since this was an almost three-and-a-half-minute thing I could re-watch as much as I wanted which meant I could pay more attention to this part specifically and hopefully figure out exactly what it was about him in particular that fascinated me so much.

One of those things was that, looking at some of what he does during his song, he must’ve been a challenge to animate properly, namely with the coloration of his claws. It took me a long time to figure out that his claws seemingly turning into different colors wasn’t because of some kind of inconsistency, but rather because the lighting in relation to where he was in the area and which position he was in regarding the light source was effecting their coloration. (It is a cool touch, but for me it makes it hard to figure out what color they should be when it comes to making fanart of him with his claws.) There are other small details I noticed about his appearance, like how he has scratches at the “ends” of his claws, but I think the more subtle details I picked up on were the ones for his eyes. Like, one pupil is bigger than the other (makes sense given who he was based on/inspired by), his eye stalks can move independently from each other in a non-synchronized way, and how his eyelids have a small, raised edge on them. Another, more obvious fun thing would probably have to be some of the screenshots of him (especially regarding his facial expressions, a lot of which feature those distinct teeth of his), they’re just…

(See what I mean about the claw colors?)

They’re just so fun to look at! His Disney wiki page says that the animators had fun working on him, and I feel like those expressions show it. I think whoever’s decision it was to not give him a face that’s more accurate to what an actual coconut crab’s looks like in favor of one somewhat more identical to Sebastian’s made a good call.

Another thing I’ve found is that, story and character-wise, I don’t think he’s entirely as insignificant as some people say he is. Not only because he serves as something of an obstacle that Moana and Maui need to overcome in order to move the plot forward, but because we do find out a little more about this movie’s take on Maui through him. We find out Maui is an inspiration to not only humans but other sentient non-human creatures as well, and more importantly we find out about Maui’s more secret past, which not only does Tamatoa know, but he uses in order to make Maui feel weak and exposed, possibly in an attempt to get back at him for tearing one of his legs off all those years ago. Given that he knows about this, it’s entirely possible that he knows Maui more personally than anybody else in the film does, which leaves one to wonder what their past history with each other was like before the leg thing happened. Something else he seems to be good at is knowing how to try and get under other people’s skin with what little knowledge he’s given from others since it seemed like he might’ve been trying to get to Moana by bringing up her grandmother and (correctly) guessing what she told her, and then immediately following it up with telling her that her grandmother was wrong. Either that, or he knows what Moana’s grandmother said because that’s what his own grandmother told him, but he doesn’t care much for what the elders had to say given how callously he brought up how he ate his own grandma. Speaking of character comparisons, in a way, Tamatoa can also be seen as a foil to Maui: they’re both strong, vain when it comes to their physical appearances (Maui with his tattoos and Tamatoa with the acquired treasures on his shell), but Maui does what he does in order to make others happy and feel good about what he’s done for them, while Tamatoa seems to do what he does to make others fear him and feel good about his status of power over them. I think Tamatoa also kinda serves to show that if you do things out of pure vanity and don’t show any genuine care for others, things will ultimately not go your way since, out of all the characters in the movie, he’s the only one who gets a truly unhappy ending. If this movie didn’t already have a more dangerous antagonist in it, I think he has the potential make-up of an interesting main villain, but I won’t complain about what we ended up with; he’s just threatening and entertaining enough for my tastes.

With all that being said, the one major thing I thought of right away was that there was something about his voice that I really liked. I’ve had a soft spot for certain voices for a long time now, but I’m usually bad on picking up on “new” voices where I don’t know who voices them, if that makes sense. Since the official video lists his voice actor, Jemaine Clement, before the name of the song and the movie, I looked him up and both read and watched a few things about him, those mostly being interviews he did regarding Moana, where I found out a few more things:

Clement’s accent isn’t just something he made up for the movie like I first thought it was (in my defense, I don’t know many people from New Zealand), and I found it really adorable the first time I heard it?

Clement is bi-racial, with his maternal half being Maori, which is probably part of how he got picked for this role (the most notable parts of voice cast are of Polynesian descent, minus Alan Tudyk, the voice of Heihei, the rooster who doesn’t actually have lines). Apparently this isn’t common knowledge though, given how many people were and still are confused by why he was in it?

Clement was told to do his David Bowie impression for this part since that was a thing he did in his two-man band Flight of the Conchords (which took me until just recently to realize that’s a pun), even though that wasn’t what he was expecting to do when he first got the part.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Clement sing, since a couple different internet reviewers I’ve seen have used a couple clips from the Flight of the Conchords series in their reviews before, and because of one YouTube commercial that was played in front of videos for a while. This isn’t even the first animated movie character I’ve heard him voice, said character being Nigel from Rio. (And no, I don’t count Jerry the Minion from the first Despicable Me movie; nobody should.)

Clement was very surprised when he found out how many people love and relate to Tamatoa. He seems fine with it though, which is nice.

IthinkImightkindasortahaveaslightcrushonhimnowI’msoverysorry

That led to me wanting to find out more of whatever was going on behind the scenes with Tamatoa, and I found more than I was expecting for a character with overall very little screentime. The things I found?

Early on in the development process he was intended to be a headless giant, which would be both closer to a traditional creature from Polynesian mythology and fit his name more since Tamatoa means “warrior”. I’m not sure when they decided to change him to a crab, but I guess I can maybe understand why? Still, kinda interesting.

Upon hearing that Clement was chosen for the part, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “Shiny” with his David Bowie impression in mind, hence a huge part of how Tamatoa turned out to be what he’s like in the movie (which explains the different-sized pupil thing I mentioned earlier).

Clement was nervous about performing “Shiny”, which gave me an even better appreciation for Auli’i Cravalho (Moana’s voice actress), since if the guy who’s sung for years was nervous about the one song he was given, then I can only imagine how much pressure she must’ve been under with the songs she had to perform, especially since she’s a young newcomer.

Tamatoa is secretly insecure about himself, which was vaguely hinted at in the last line he has in the movie itself (with him lying defenseless on his back and pouting as he weakly asks “Did you like the song?”), but possibly could’ve been a little more apparent had some of his material not been cut out of the movie. Some of the lyrics from the demo version of “Shiny” that didn’t make the final cut were “it’s never enough/love yourself, get your armor up/they can’t see your heart is a vacancy,” which were supposed to be belittling Maui for wanting the humans’ approval so much, but given how similar he and Maui are and how differently the lyrics I bolded and italicized are delivered in comparison to the rest of the song’s demo, it sounds like they easily could’ve doubled as Tamatoa briefly lapsing into talking about himself again and/or having a moment of genuine pity for Maui. The former possibility would suggest that the reason he collects so much bright junk to put onto his shell (outside of it being an easy way to attract prey) would be to make himself seem more visually interesting to others, meaning he does care what others think of him. The latter would suggest that, while he clearly no longer looks up to Maui as he once did, he still has some basic sympathy for him.

Speaking of cut material, there was an interview where Clement talked about how he improvised a couple things going off the whole “I ate my grandma” line. One improvised part he talked about was how he made up a long apology for eating his grandma which somehow left him in tears, and another where Tamatoa admitted that he was only joking about eating his grandma and how he would never do that. I really hope to hear this and whatever else didn’t make it into the film one day, because I really want to know if it sounds anything like it does in my imagination. He also mentioned how he wished that Tamatoa had some more self-realization, and I kinda feel the same way, honestly.

People relate to him because they too want to be appealing but feel like on the inside “they’re actually just a crab”. I feel he’s relatable because he acts like he’s a tough guy who doesn’t really care about others, but he secretly does seek others’ approval of the things that he does.

In short, there’s a lot more that I like about him than I first thought, and thus I have a lot of favorite things about him. He’s just lots of fun for me to think about.

#Moana #Tamatoa #death mention //#cannibalism mention //#Jemaine Clement #long post #Flight of the Conchords #answered asks #memegucket #jesus christ this was way longer than I thought it would be I'm so sorry

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a-salty-frenchfry · 7 years

Note

all da questions fam

I hate you

Ask me things

1. What’s your middle name? Elyce

2. What are you listening to right now? Hikaru Nara by Goose House (from Your Lie in April)

3. What was the last thing you ate? McDonalds

4. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? My aunt

5. Do you drink? Nah. I will when I got to Paris this Summer though hehe

6. Do you smoke? Hell no

7. What is the first thing you noticed in someone? Hair

8. What is your hair color? Black/light brown at the ends

9. What is your eye color? Brown

10. Do you wear contacts/glasses? Nada

11. Dogs or cats? Cat

12. What’s your favorite animal? I guess cat or bunny

13. What’s your favorite television show? The Next Food Network Star or any of the Seasonal Baking Championships

14. What’s your favorite movie? Either Frozen or Moana

15. What’s your favorite band/singer? Taylor swift and Alizée

16. How old are you? 18

17. Do you have a crush on anyone? Yeeee

18. What’s your sexual orientation? Straight

19. What’s your favorite color? Pink or mint green

20. What was your most embarrassing moment?

This is the only one I can think of right now

In February, when I was at a French Conversation Hour, someone kept calling me and everyone is like “you should answer it” (I NEVER answer the phone if I don’t know the number by the way). So by the 4th call, I answered it, put it on speaker, said “bonjour”, and started speaking in French and acting like I didn’t speak any English (just in case it was a scam or something). After a few moments of worry and confusion she says “I have a package from Amazon…is this [my name]?” Then I start apologizing like crazy, everyone bursts out laughing, then I go to meet her at the Student Center to pick up my package and apologize some more (because mail services were closed and I ordered one day delivery). I explained that I was in a French club and never answer unknown numbers. I hope I gave her a fun story to tell her coworkers lol

TL;DR I answered an unknown number speaking in French in case it was a scam, turns out it was an Amazon employee with my package and I made her worried that I didn’t speak English

21. Do you ever wish you were someone else? Not really. Probably still me, but without ADHD because it sucks and I hate it

22. What were you like when you were a kid? Hyper and lazy

23. What would your dream house be like?

Cozy one or two-story home with a lawn and nice furniture. The dream would be in the kitchen though since I love baking: double oven with convection, beautiful sink w/motion sensor faucet, and stainless steel two-door fridge w/freezer and a blast chiller, professional Kitchen Aid stand mixer, you get the gist. Basically a Food Network competition style kitchen 😍

24. What last made you laugh? SB2 reaction to Sailor Moon Crystal videos.

25. What is your favorite word? Fuck

26. What is your least favorite word? Almost anything that is associated with nsfw content

27. What turns you on? Boys who are too pure for this world (my current crush went on a 7-month international trip to do charity work in third-world countries 😭❤️ )

28. What turns you off? Conservatives (doesn’t mean I won’t like you at all. It just means I won’t like you romantically, which I’m assuming is what this question is asking)

29. What is your star sign? Cancer

30. What are your favorite books? The Mortal Instruments series

31. Do you have any siblings? Younger little shit brother

32. Do you like to dance? Alone

33. What is your definition of cheating? Acting on romantic/sexual feelings for anyone other than current significant other

34. Have you ever cheated on someone? No

35. Do you regret anything? Lots

36. Do you have any phobias? Arachnophobia and astraphobia

37. Ever broken any bones? No

38. Ever come close to death? More than once. Peanut allergies are a bitch 🙃

39. What is your religion, if any? Roman Catholic, but very loosely

40. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist/therapist? No

41. Are looks important in a relationship? Meh. While looks are usually what attracts and starts a relationship, in the long run, you love the person for their soul, not just a pretty face

42. Are you more like your mom or your dad? Mom

43. What is your favorite season? Spring

44. Do you have any tattoos? No

45. Do you have any piercings? Ears

46. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had? 2 bfs

47. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Multiple

48. Who is your celebrity crush? Don’t really have one, but I guess Zac Efron?

49. Are you a virgin? Yes

50. Do you get jealous easily? Only with close friends

51. What is your favorite type of food? Italian

52. Do you ever want to get married? Yes

53. Who was your first kiss with? I’m #foreveralone fam

54. Have you ever been cheated on? No

55. What is your idea of the perfect date? A walk. Just walking around a park, or an amusement park, or maybe a festival; talking, holding hands, perhaps buying a snack/souvenir from a street vendor; taking in the scenery and enjoying each other’s company.

56. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Ambivert

57. Do you believe in aliens or life on other planets? Yes and no. The universe is way too fucking big to be certain

58. What talent do you wish you’d been born with? Musical

59. What is your saddest memory? When my parents broke the news that my grandma died

60. Do you believe in love at first sight? No. See 41. You can’t “love” someone for who they are before you even meet them. Otherwise it’s lust at first sight.

61. Do you believe in soul mates? Sure

62. Have you ever dyed your hair? The lower half of my hair was dyed blue for about 5 months. Then I dyed to black again because Prom and Graduation

63. Has someone ever spread a nasty rumor about you? Not that I know of

64. Would you go against your moral code for money? Not MY moral code.

65. What are three things most people don’t know about you? 1) I know 3 languages. 2) I want to go to culinary school in Paris. 3) I used to do horseback riding

66. Who are you jealous of? Anyone @sheeptansplayground calls her best friend who isn’t me lmao

67. Do you sleep with a stuffed toy? No Yeah, like 3

68. How long was your longest relationship? 7 months

69. Is the glass half empty or half full? There’s liquid in it

70. What is the sexiest thing someone could ever do for/to you? Do something romantic that’s tied with Filipino culture (even saying something like “I love you” in Tagalog is good enough for me. Lame I know, but I have low standards lmao)

71. Who is your most loyal friend? @sheeptansplayground or so I thought

72. Are you in a relationship? No

73. If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is your favorite thing about him/her? N/A

74. Are you a bad person? I’m human. Good/bad person is an imaginary concept made up by society. It all depends on perspective.

75. Are you a lover or a fighter? Lover

76. What did you do on your last birthday? Had family and a couple friends over

77. What is your favorite quote and why? “People push you to your limits and when you finally explode and fight back, they think you are the mean one”. I relate to this a lot. There’s only one person I’ve ever exploded on and have felt *true* hatred for, yet I’M the unreasonable one.

78. If your best friend died, what would you do? Fall into a major depression and give up on everything

79. If you had to go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? Reblogging this fucking post.

80. If you only had 24 hours to live, what would you do? EAT and confess to my crush I love him

81. What is the strangest dream you’ve ever had?

When I was in elementary school, I had a dream where there was this “special” star in the sky, and it looked like something out of a children’s book (it had a smiley face with dimples and was pretty cute). But I was unimpressed by it, which apparently hurt its feelings because it frowned and then shot down like a shooting star. Then the cops came after me. After that, I became afraid of shooting stars for like 5 years.

82. Are you happier single or in a relationship? Idk I’ve never had a “real” relationship

83. Who were you in a past life? A tiger Lol thanks BuzzFeed

84. What is your happiest childhood memory? Spending time with my grandma every Summer and Thanksgiving

85. Have you ever experienced unrequited love? Yep

86. Have you ever had an imaginary friend? Nope

87. If you were the president, what would you do? Fix the damn healthcare

88. What is your ideal career? Pastry chef, perhaps a well-known one on Food Network

89. What is your political affiliation? Democrat

90. Are you conservative or liberal? Liberal af

91. Is the male or female body closest to perfection? Depends on your definition of “perfection”

92. Do you like kissing in public? Maybe a quick peck on the cheek or lips

93. If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change? Goodbye greed

94. Where would you like to live? Either current hometown or France

95. Where would you go on your dream vacation? Nice, France

96. Describe yourself in one word. Shy

97. Describe yourself in one sentence. For the most part I’m a Cinnamon Roll™, but push me over the edge and you’ll get a demon. (Connected to question 77)

#reply #ask me anything meme #sheeptansplayground #i thought you were my best friend #traitor

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t-shirts-are-my-strength · 7 years

Text

Purging My Thoughts About Moana

Probably yelling to the void here, but thinking on the upcoming Beauty and the Beast movie got me thinking on how Disney’s movies for this past year ranged from “OMG amazing!” to “meh”. Moana, for me at least, is in that ‘meh’ category. At first, it was in the ‘disappointing’ category, but that was because I went into the movie expecting something more than what it was.

Moana, to make it short and sweet, is nothing new. Yes, she is a Polynesian “not princess”, yes they make wonderful use of Polynesian culture and legends, yes the songs are catchy, yes I can enjoy it with friends, but the underlying story is terribly, terribly route. The plot was so foreseeable it hurt, and while that may not be a bad thing for a feel-good movie, usually you want to have your movies stand out from the crowd with some sort of nuance or je ne sais quoi. But I think the worst part about it for me, was three things: I could not connect with Moana as a main character, I could not perceive one strong underlying message, and the breaking of the forth wall.

The Break of the Fourth Wall

I’ll address the latter first since it’s small and easy to get out of the way- it’s cute when Disney can point and laugh about itself and the perceived stereotypes it has, but doing it in dialogue can have a nasty effect. It breaks me out of the story and severely dates the tale for future audiences.

The first strike was when Maui toted the ‘tweeting’ joke. Aha ha. Very funny, but also leaves me wondering where the hell can he pick up this sort of knowledge. Our protagonists are in ancient Polynesia, no recent technology anywhere, and Maui has been stuck on that rock of an island for one thousand years. There is no logical way he could have the knowledge to make a joke like that, and now that I’ve realized that, POOF, I no longer have a good suspense of disbelief. Not to mention this joke will place the story squarely in the “Millennial Era” where Twitter has a strong foothold. It would be ridiculous to believe that future audiences will still be using Twitter- the interface of the internet is changing all the time and to anchor a joke on such a fleeting thing is lazy in the setting of the story. I might have accepted it from the genie in Aladdin- he says crazy references all the time and has an excuse (magic and cartoon physics)- or in a more modern tale like Zootopia, where they have technology references everywhere. The joke just doesn’t fit the context.

The second one is the “you have a dress and a small animal sidekick, you’re a princess” line. Again, from Maui. Again, makes no sense contextually. And has the added bonus of me wondering why such a thing matters to him. Again damaging my suspense of disbelief. Yay. Once was fine. Twice has now ruined my enjoyment of a story I now can’t get engaged in. Why do the characters care about this distinction? If the ancient Polynesian cultures in this movie have no princesses, how do these characters know such definitions? How many so called ‘princesses’ has Maui been around to know this trope, much less recognize Moana for what she is with no other signifiers like tattoos, a crown or jewelry besides her necklace? Why does Moana care? This issue literally has not been brought up earlier in the exposition and it has no bearing to the plot but for a ‘heartwarming call-back’ later on. It does not matter, and now just has me comparing Moana to other Disney princesses in my head and not paying attention to the plot. Maui just as easily could have said some insult comparable to ‘feeble mortal’ or ‘wandering idiot’ and it would have had the same desired effect.

I know a lot of this point seems like nit-picking, but for my personal experience of the movie, it has a heavy bearing on whether I’m engaged. I was forcibly disengaged. Not good.

I could not connect to Moana as a Main Character

Sort of addressed in the point above, what with the fourth wall break, but it’s such a large issue for my experience of the movie, it gets its own point. A large part of what makes characters likable and why we want to follow their adventures is because they are relatable. They have some flaw, or some series of unfortunate events that makes their experiences, in some small way, comparable to our own.

For Moana, in the rising action, I perceive several things- she is a leader, she loves her people, she is inexplicably drawn to the sea, she has loving parents that she wants to make proud, she is headstrong, and she believes herself duty-bound. Cool. Not really seeing any weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong- while I personally may not have any experiences with being a future chieftain, If she had showed uncertainty in the aspects of being a leader itself, like worrying that she may get things wrong or feeling as if people don’t respect her, I might have connected. I may not have any experiences with being drawn to the sea, but if it was showed that she had raw talent for sailing, and that’s why she was drawn, I might have connected. I have experiences being connected to and caring for an entire community, but when Moana is only shown having deep connections with her parents and grandmother- I don’t see her having conversations or meaningful gestures (a wave, a hello, how’re you) with peers or even people her parents age (I don’t even remember seeing someone her age on the island, besides the toddlers in the opening), it’s hard to believe that she’s much connected to them at all, and therefore hard to understand her want to serve them. There’s a small aside to her parents (“she’s doing great!”) that has me believe that they’re connected to the community, but not so for her. I mean, come on- you do the bait-and-switch for the pig and rooster when you could have easily replaced the pig with a mischievous human friend. And still had the rooster be the small animal sidekick.

Besides that, I am shown glimpses of her headstrong nature, which I can connect with, but it’s not in the spotlight for the exposition and isn’t treated as a flaw until near the end of the movie, in which it’s too late for me to consider it a flaw to be embraced or overcome. Bringing me to my second perception for her character and character arc- Moana is also very confident in everything in the exposition, and the sudden appearance of her “self-worth arc” in the second half of the movie is a bit confusing. I was not shown that she had this issue in the rising action- yes, she was nervous about leaving home and confronting Maui (who wouldn’t be?) but this doesn’t tie to “self-worth” as it could. She’s in a new environment and facing a stranger who is a demigod- it’s understandable for even the most braggadocios person to be nervous.

In her “I want” song, she sings the line “I wish I could be the perfect daughter” buuuuuuuuuut, I see nothing else on “self-worth”- her conflict of the land vs the sea is a conflict of duty vs want. Not of “self-worth”. And a single line in a song is an egregious cross of the “show don’t tell” rule o’ thumb. And it’s mostly because of this apparent absence of the starting point for her “self-worth” arc that I find it hard to believe the supposed-to-be-poignant scene of “choose someone else” and Ghost Grandma has any place in the plot at all. It still confuses the heck out of me the third time I watch it and ask myself, “where is this coming from?” You could say it’s because Maui is an influence that put that doubt into her head, but most of her interactions with him are spent clearly taking his word for nothing and disrespecting him to such a degree that I can’t believe that reason either. And we aren’t shown an introspective moment where she gives us an expression to clue us in that maybe his words are hurting her before that climax where he leaves. I can just as easily imaging her character thus far giving his fleeing figure a salty expression and then deciding to continue on for herself and her people (that she claims to love so much but now has so much self-worth issues she’s just gonna give up and kinda seal them to a fate of death and destruction without giving it so much of a second try) without a thought to her “self-worth” and definitely without the Ghost Reprise.

In fact, the “self-worth” character arc is more of Maui’s than Moana’s. That annoying crab even sings about insecurities that relate more to Maui than Moana. From the beginning of the plot to the final minutes before Maui leaving, Moana is a rather self-assured character. And despite the dramatic change in Maui leaving-Ghost Reprise, she still is the same character at the end. A headstrong leader who loves her people, the ocean, duty-bound, that wants to make her parents proud. I see no character change. That’s a terrible mistake.

And it’s a problem because Moana’s character arc is so clearly meant to be “The Heroes Journey”. She is forced to leave home to a fantastical adventure to save her friends, and comes back the better for it. Except she doesn’t and that’s frustrating because it doesn’t help the routine nature of the story to where I can predict the exact moment Maui shows back up, or that Te Ka was really Te Fiti in my first viewing. And the fact that Maui shows up for literally no reason at all.

No, no, hear me out. In every instance that they were in danger, did Maui once care for Moana’s well-being at all? Nooooooo. With the Kakamora, he doesn’t begrudgingly pursue her and the chicken. When they enter Lalotai, and she gets flung away, he doesn’t go after her with huff-and-puff. Or even at least debate with himself about it. The Mini-Maui doesn’t count- he acts as his own character. He uses her a bait for pete’s sake. Yes, this is before we get the heart-warming speech and the cute montage about learning to Wayfind, but it almost comes too little too late for me in the overall narrative. Here’s Maui, severely doubting himself thanks to his hook being broken, pretty much thinking that he could die should he go back, and too hurt to listen to a mortal who isn’t even sure in her own ‘chosen-ness’. How am I supposed to believe that he has a “I better go after her” epiphany when he hasn’t shown such inclination before? A small nitpick, yes, but that was also something that took me out of my suspense of disbelief.

But all this diatribe about character ties into the third point:

I could not perceive one strong underlying message

Mostly, this comes from Moana developing the “self-worth” issue out of nowhere, the conflicting nature of the duty vs wants thread and the ‘self-worth’ thread, and the fact that we still don’t get a concrete answer on why the ocean chose her in the first place. WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?

I’ve seen someone argue that the ocean chose her because Moana shows compassion and an understanding of people, but I don’t see that in the exposition or the rising action until she comforts Maui. Too little, too late for me to believe that’s why the ocean chose her. You could say it’s because she’s drawn to the sea, but so was her father, and he didn’t get picked. So could any of the fishermen, and none of them got picked. So could the kid that pulled out the weird dance moves and winked at her (they are all descended from voyagers, after all) but he didn’t get picked. You could argue that her helping the baby sea turtle was a demonstration of this compassion, but it’s still forgetting the understanding of people, and she is a baby who has yet to grow into her own. Not buying it.

So this leaves the “the ocean chose me for a reason” declaration rather….. empty-feeling. I still have no idea as to why it choose to do so. You could argue it’s because she had the headstrongness to contend with Maui’s personality, but like I said- baby. Not buying it. Why does the water have to keep itself secret from her parents anyway? You’d think it’d be easier to find someone willing to go if they knew there was an element of truth to the old legends.

So we don’t have “Be ____ and you will succeed” sort of story. Which leaves us with the “self-worth” plot that could have honestly been so much more well done if Moana had been established as the sort of character to have that flaw in the beginning. But because that’s half-baked, it leaves me leaving the theater thinking “what’s the message?” And not in a good way. Every story needs a message, a theme, a warning, or a central idea, because that’s why we seek out stories- to gain information about how to deal with certain feelings or situations should they arise. Moana gives me nothing. Even after sitting down to think about it, I’m left with two half-baked ideas that can’t become that message in its own right. Therefore they compete in the worst way and have me think that perhaps that there is no message. And you could perhaps pull that off with flash fiction or a short film, but for a fairytale- which has it’s very genesis on cautionary tales and messages- that’s bad.

After writing all of this, what irks me the most is that it didn’t have to be this way. If there was better writing, we could have had something new and fresh while still sticking to the heroes journey and “self-worth” arcs that try to make themselves present.

There’s no need to continue, but I have some ideas to modify the plot so these issues might get a little resolution. Not a ‘be all, end all’ certainly, and i can’t claim to be a story-writing genius, so take this next section with a grain of salt

How I would re-write Moana:

I would latch onto the line describing Wayfinding from Maui- “You find out where you’re going, by knowing where you’ve been.” In my opinion, the theme of Wayfinding was underused. Or rather, wasn’t set up in well in the beginning.

Act 1:

Pua is no longer a pig- since HeiHei was the true animal sidekick all along, I’ve changed them to Moana’s contemporary. Boy, girl, I don’t care, but they need to be Moana’s age and her close friend that may or may not be related. We begin in the same place- Grandmother telling the tale of Te Fiti and Maui to a group of toddlers. Nothing much changes except for a new sequence- when baby Moana reaches the fronds before the shore, she grows into Small Child Moana, who is now playing on the shore with her friends.

They are having a ball, playing in the sand, running in and out of the ocean. Moana is shown to have more of a connection to the sea than her peers- she’s peaceful, completely in the water. A piece of driftwood comes by, and gets on it, now drifting away from the caretaker (or one of her parents) mostly concerned with the other children. We have the “choosing” scene, but now it’s in contrast to other peers that stay mostly on land, and they don’t have a spirit that makes they push in the face of adversity (hence a subtle hint to why the ocean chose the kid). Her parents find her- far from her original spot- and launch into “Find Happiness Right Where You Are”

With this song, here’s where the species switch with Pua starts to come about- Moana is shown, during the length of the song, to have a friend that she repeatedly engages in shenanigans with, but Pua doesn’t gravitate towards the ocean as she does. In fact, in comparison to Pua, Moana is shown to be a little less assured- little falters in her movements here and there. Not enough to catch it on the first go around, but definitely evident on the second. The segment following is when a grown Moana and her father are training her leadership skills, and Pua happens to follow along. Moana is doing the physical, headstrong work to solve the problems, but it’s Pua that interacts with people just a hair faster than Moana, creating a dichotomy of two friends who perhaps both equally able to lead. Moana does mind it quite a bit (as we see through body language), but doesn’t say anything because Pua is her friend. (There is still the aside with Coconut lady saying “she’s doing great!”) Insecurity comes in with the hula scene- Moana is good, but she’s alternating between watching the children dance and watching Pua dance slightly better alongside them.

Then we get to the issue about the fish, and once the problem is presented to be quite serious the two friends take different approaches- Pua immediately begins to talk different ways they could find new fishing venues in the lagoon with that adults, but Moana hops up on a boat and asks that question- “what if we fished beyond the reef?”

The argument with her father goes the same until the end, where I propose adding a new line- “Why can’t you be more like Pua- not entertaining fancies of the ocean?” (or something like that) Pua looks uncomfortable, along with the fisher dudes, and then the final line- “Every time I think you’re past this.” As her father stalks off, Pua comes up to talk, but Moana shuts them off by turning away, shrugging off the hand they try to put on her shoulder. Now the line “I wish I could be the perfect daughter,” in “How Far I’ll Go” has more weight to it.

I’ve always wished they explained why Moana was so good fighting the Kakamora, so in the next scene with her mother, Moana is hitting airborne coconuts, rather than throwing wood into the sand.

Act 2:

Everything is pretty much the same (a little bit more emphasis on her uncertainty to leave, and her headstrong believe in the fact that someone has to return the Heart, and cutting out the ‘twitter’ and ‘princess’ lines) until we get to the Kakamora. Here Moana is shown to be very competent getting HeiHei back- but he’s already spit up the Heart of Te Fiti on the Kakamora ship, and she doesn’t notice until they’ve already sailed a good distance away and the leader of the Kakamora is holding up the stone in victory. She argues with Maui to get it back, but he says to go after it would be death, so they strike the deal to get his hook back.

Wayfinding has its introduction, and we cut out the nightmare sequence.

In Lalotai, when Moana bounces away, Maui looks over the precipice, and instead of saying “weeeell, she’s dead,” He gives a begrudging sigh. We cut away to Moana’s misfortune until Maui saves her from an additional creature, after she outwits a couple others. Besides that, the scene continues much the same, only while Tamatoa preys on Maui’s insecurities rather harshly, he also indirectly touches on Moana’s insecurity on the sea’s decision of her. (I rather like the emotional weight of ‘Shark head’)

After Lalotai, Maui begins to teach Moana Wayfinding in earnest, and they begin the journey to the home islands of the Kakamora. Maui and Moana have that talk about Maui’s own personal journey, and each gain a little more respect in each other’s eyes. Once they come to the Kakamora island, they hash out a plan to retrieve the Heart- Maui believes Moana should stay behind, and we get the first argument to show that Moana is still a headstrong girl with leadership capabilities. Her plan ultimately is the best, and they move forward into it- Maui distracts the Kakamora while Moana goes clandestine and finds the Heart. In fighting off the Kakamora who notice her, Moana comes upon a ceremony where it is revealed that the Kakamora are trying (and failing) to use the Heart to revive their island from the darkness that has come to claim it. It is much worse and devastating than the decay on her island, and she stares up at it in horror, asking herself- “is this what will happen to my island?” The pause gives the Kakamora an upper hand in the battle- Maui now must come and save Moana. They retrieve the heart and battle their way back out of there, but now Maui is not completely sure of Moana’s ability to lead- and subtly, neither is she. They set course towards Te Fiti, and there’s more of an emphasis on character building in Wayfinding and conversation between Moana and Maui- Moana grows more confident in her skills and we get the sweet speech before we head into the battle.

Act 3:

The battle goes down the same, (there’s a base for Maui to disbelieve Moana’s headstrong leadership in the heat of battle now) and Maui leaves after an additional line about how he’s not following Moana to their doom. Last blow to Moana’s confidence before he takes off and we get to the Ghost Reprise scene. Moana doesn’t give the Heart back to the sea (she has too many people depending on her, not to) but she does sobbingly question whether she should seek out someone else to take the task. Ghost Grandma comes onto the scene and we get the confidence builder- only now it’s reinforced by another line- “Afterall, look at where you’ve been-“ and Ghost Grandma gestures towards the adventures she’s had coming towards the island- the Kakamora home Island is seeable in the distance, and the other islands- The Gate to Lalotai, the Broken Kakamora ship, Motunui, are represented by stars. And as the ghost ships of Wayfinders flit past, Moana realized the experiences she’s gone through and her desires make her who she is, and leader or not, it is she who has to continue on to Te Fiti for the people who depend on her journey and her goal.

That’s pretty much it for the rewrite- to be honest, I was disappointed in the reveal that there was no final boss, but the message to take confidence in where you’ve been and where you’ve got to go takes much more weight when Moana demonstrates her mastery of understanding the concept in reaching out to Te Ka. She then returns to Motunui confident in what she’s learned (she and Pua share a hug, but now we see their relationship in a different light) and we get that sweet Ending Reprise. Only know it has more meaning because the philosophy behind Wayfinding- “Knowing who you are by knowing where you’ve been” is much stronger and is the main message.

Thanks to all the people who took the time to read to the end. You’re wonderful!

#Moana #Disney #diatribe #Moana criticism #I still enjoy the movie #just not as much as I enjoy something like Big Hero 6 #or Tangled #or Frozen #or Zootopia #or any other of the more nuanced movies Disney has come out with lately #it took me 3 rewatches to figure out what was bothering me about this movie

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fragiilexa · 7 years

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1 - 10

identity ask………oh shit ACCEPTING

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

Hm, well I guess this is three questions omg but I’ll just go down the line. If they wanted to really understand me they’d have to read the Bible, which I know is saying a lot in one thing. But the reason I am the way I am is because of the things I’ve learned from that book and I would not be who I am without it. Of course I actually haven’t been able to read the whole thing yet but I take a lot of who I am from it & it’s just something that’s shaped me as a person? Oh but also I really don’t read books much anymore, but if I had to give another one it would be The Last Song? Maybe? ( The book is better than the movie, even tho I like the movie, the books better ) It just talks a lot about forgiveness & stuff and it was a lesson I really needed to learn at the time I read it & also am still learning. OH and also Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which is like a christian book, but it’s also had a huge impact on me, okay but onto watchin’.

Okay this is hard because there isn’t one full thing you could watch where the whole thing has impacted me. But there are a lot of movies I’ve learned from, ( and also since this doesn’t say specifically movies ) there are also a few speeches that I’ve really learned from ( and people would probably be able to understand me better if they watched them. But I can’t name those right now? But, I’d have to say, like, not as a whole, but Dr. Who, at least some specific episodes. Uh, Captain America?? The Help? There are more but I have a hard time naming movies/shows.

Okay and then music, fricken music, okay I could put so so so so many songs down, songs are like the soul of my life & help make me, me BUT I’m just going to give you ONE because if I didn’t this would go on forever and TWO it’s kind of my theme song but I Was Here, by the queen Beyonce. Is like, hands down my favorite *what makes me, me* song. I could name a lot more. I could make a 24 hour long playlist. But I won’t bc that would take forever.

2. have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

Yes, There have been a few and most of them are not on anymore but, Kae I think I can solidly say we think very similarly on just, like, how to develop muses, how to work out characters and how REAL they’re supposed to be, you know? Characters can, and should have flaws and no one has tons of perfect relationships. Real life is messy & writing should reflect that & I think we are just hella synced with that message & feeling and she’s just lovely so yeah @spookylip is bae & we think alike ( obviously bc we took those selfies that matched wITHOUT EVEN KNOWING ) we are #one

3. list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

Girl Meets World: Riley Matthews.Glee: Tina Cohen - Chang.Marvel: Captain America, Steve Rogers.Hamilton: Eliza or Peggy SchyulerDisney: HeiHei ( no just kidding ) Moana, Princess Anna, Rapunzel,Harry Potter: Newt ScamanderStar Wars: FinnMy Little Pony: ( don’t u dare judge ) FlutterShyTwilight: Alice Cullen

4. do you like your name? is there another name you think would fit you better?

Okay so I used to not like my name so much ‘cause it was really bland & there were a lot of other girls named rebecca when I was in school, then people started calling me rachel so it was like ‘my name is totally forgettable’ ( or i was i dunno ) but over the past few years I’ve started to love it, though someone ruINED the meaning of it for me *side eyes that kinky anon* but I don’t really care & I love my name now, just, never ever call me becky or I will murder u in ur sleep. :))))

5. do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do?

I was slightly confused reading this but I re-read it & now I get it. I think at the moment, or for the longest time I’ve been a human being, like, there are just no opportunities right now for me to be doing what others my age are, or even younger than me. Not only that but I have to work on a lot of anxieties of mine, but that being said I don’t think I’m doing nothing. What I’m doing is small, yeah, but I try to do the best I can with what I have & I have a lot of faith that things happen for a reason & right now I’m keeping things going in my family & trying to better myself, no matter how many downsides that has, sort of. & I do Identify myself by the things I do, mostly because in doing something you have the opportunity to help someone. I try to do the right things, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t but it’s a daily thing, y’know?

6. are you religious/spiritual?

Yah. You can see that with some of my answers but I am, though I know right now a lot of people assume that if you’re religious ( especially christian, on this site at least ) that it automatically means you’re this, this & this *insert any form of ism or phobic term* but that’s really not how it works. We’re all sinners & no matter what that still doesn’t change the way God feels about us ( no matter what, we, as humans think is sin, or sinful ) I could go on a lot about this topic, honestly it’s a big part of who I am. But personally, I love God, I have a personal relationship with him that I try to work on daily & grow with him daily, my God is all loving and I just wished more people my age, or at least people on here knew that?? I dunno, there’s just so much rhetoric surrounding Christianity & most of it is wrong & I just??? Mmmm I’m getting off topic but yes! I am! It’s like a huge part of what keeps me going, I love Jesus.

7. do you care about your ethnicity?

YES. Oh my Gosh yeah, okay well I’m white, lmao, but where I come from is still like, really important to me. It used to not be. I actually used to be kind of… not ashamed but embarrassed when my Mom did really dutch things. Like, ok backing up, My grandpa moved here from the Netherlands when he was in his early teens around the time that the holocaust happened, though I couldn’t give you the exact date because I’m hella forgetful but he came with his parents and he met my Grandma and u know the deal it goes down the line. But anyways I used to like, not like the things that came with being dutch, like, I just thought it was all stupid & silly, like clogs & doilies & stupid little things like my great grandma & grandpa always used to use forks & knives with everything because it was a custom where they came from & like, it’s all small things but over the years I’ve just learned to be really proud of where my family came from? My Grandpa went through a lot to come here, he saw a lot of things he never talked about and I didn’t know him well because I was young when he died but I just really love embracing my heritage there & stuff.

Like I’m white yes, and I’m basically a ‘mystery white’ ‘cause my dad is a mutt & my mom isn’t fully dutch either. I’m one of those 10% Irish 25% Hungarian 50% Dutch & 15% other type of whites, but??? I’m still proud of all of it?? Like I love learning about where I came from & who I am & I think everyone should be proud of all parts of their ethnicity. As Matthew Montgomery said: “ Love all your percentages. “

8. what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

shiT fam, this is getting so long & it’s gonna get longer, okay let me just do like… two, tha two tops…

Demi Lovato: Obviously, I mean… obviously She is one of the people I look up to most and I don’t know where I would be if I never had her & her music in my life. She’s taught me so much about strength and confidence and overcoming something when it looks like it will be impossible. She’s helpped me grow into someone who cares & wants to learn & help others and I just admire her so much for what she’s done, for herself, for others and for never giving up when she could have. Not to mention the ballads that have helped me through really hard times, or the speeches she’s given that remind me I’m strong & capable

Taylor Swift: *que everyone groaning who’s reading* anYWAYS I can’t even honestly write down or explain how many times that Taylor and her music has helped me when I felt like I wanted to give up, or how many times I have cried listening to songs that should not have resonated with me but did. She’s helped me to realize not only that I am important but that no matter what, despite what people may do to me, or make me feel that I’m still important and worth working on. She’s also shown me what goofing off can do to make you feel better, how not giving a shit has helped me move on from past relationships and how being unapologetically ME is okay

In fact, I feel like Demi’s taught me those things too. But they’ve both done it in different ways, which I think shows how beautiful loving yourself can be. Because you don’t have to love yourself how another person loves themselves. You have to figure out your own, unique way to view yourself & believe in yourself & love yourself & I think that’s just really beautiful. Now, they both hate each other ( or at least severely dislike one another ) but I just feel like they’ve both done so much for me and I don’t think I could thank either of them enough for showing me strength, beauty, confidence and love in the way they have. It’s insane how much of an impact people can have but they have. I could go on but I woont I promise.

9. are you an artist?

YES I am, though my skill can be debated I love drawing when I’m in the mood & painting & jst everything that has to do with art.

10. do you have a creed?

I don’t know if this means religious, or… otherwise… but I mean, technically I’m a baptist christian ( i think? not sure anymore ) but like, I am Christian, I feel like, sadly, the beliefs I hold are a bit left leaning & less erm, strict? When it comes to how I interpret the bible, where as a my family is different, I think? I don’t know, but I just try to follow the teachings of Jesus & his disciples. “ Love others as I have loved you - John 15:12 “ I do go by other teachings but I think that’s the top of my list. Jesus loves us unconditionally, he died for us, lived for us, and rose again so we didn’t have to burn up in hell for eternity. The least I can do is show everyone the same kind of unconditional love he’s showed me throughout my life & make sure people know that though we do sin & are inherently bad at heart, he still loves us despite our downfalls and doubt. I don’t know if that really answers this question but I had to look up creed & this is the best answer I came up with SO, thank u for sending this in and I love u

#THIS GOT SO LONG OOPS #BUT THANK U BLESS U I LOVE MEMES #smilerpc #⌘ ||▷ тalĸ тo мe вaвy ▹▹ ( ▨ ' answered by me. )

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pengychan · 7 years

Text

Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 9

For several days after he found himself a friend and a leg short, Tamatoa wouldn't leave his cave.

First off, he saw no point in leaving when dragging himself back in had been so difficult to begin with. Secondly, he could ignore the fact he was missing a leg as long as he didn’t try walking. And third, he just plainly didn’t want to leave it. The fact alone he was still alive - wounded, but alive - was a relief and a source of anger at the same time.

From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me.

He slept little, and what sleep he got was far from resting: he would awaken with a start each time, expecting to see Maui swinging his hook down on him, a sharp pain in his phantom limb. He’d eaten said limb, of course, because he needed food while he recovered and hey, his gran hadn’t raised him to be wasteful - but soon enough, hunger reared its head again. And yet he didn’t leave the cave: he burrowed himself deeper into the hole in the rock he slept into and kept himself busy looking at every little piece of treasure he had collected, over and over again.

It was a lot of treasure and it was so shiny, it actually made him feel better. So what if Maui had chosen the humans over him? He was an idiot, that was his loss, and he’d make him pay one day.

Tamatoa shut his eyes, and thought of Maui’s retreating back - of how the last thing he’d seen before blacking out was the newly forming tattoo behind his shoulder, showing their battle. Yet another of his heroic feats, on display for all to see. How many people would he show that tattoo? How much would he brag over defeating and maiming him, like so many before him?

Of course that doesn’t apply to you. You’re my buddy.

So I’m not the exception anymore, am I?

You’re not worth the worst of them, you bottom-feed–

The memory cut deeper than he should have allowed it to, and Tamatoa’s eyes snapped open, only to be met with his own reflection on a slab of gold. He stared down at it, blinking a couple of times, then he breathed out and went back to examining each piece of his collection. Once again, doing so soothed him. Maui could keep his stupid tattoos and tell what he liked to those stupid humans to keep their stupid love - so what? He had something better right there. He could do without a friend, he could do without a leg: his treasure was still there, every last bit of it. And really, it was about time he began showing it off. What was the point in keeping treasure if no one else knew of it, and envied him for it?

I’m never going to hide again.

Starting to stick his collection on his shell, piece by piece, was more of an impulse than a conscious decision. But it got him to stand up for the first time in days and, focused as he was on what he was doing, he barely even noticed the absence of his front left leg. He barely noticed he was hungry. He didn’t care what Maui had called him - he didn’t care because he was wrong, because he was worth all the humans in existence and more, because no bottom-feeder would look that dazzling, would it?

And he did look dazzling all right: once he walked out of the cave to take a good look at himself in the sunlight, he found he couldn’t bring himself to look away. With everything shiny he had ever collected on his shell, covering up most of it, he had turned himself in what was nothing short of a work of art. Why in the world hadn’t he thought of it before?

Tamatoa laughed in sheer delight, spinning a couple of times just to watch himself sparkle so brightly it almost blinded him. He looked amazing - so, so much better than Maui with his stupid ink stains. If he could see him now–

What if he comes back to take the treasure?

The thought alone was enough to kill the moment, the laugh turning into ashes in his mouth. Deep down, he knew that it was unlikely, that Maui would not return unless he was given a reason to - but the truth was that he didn’t want to stay on that island. Home stops feeling like home pretty quickly when someone maims you in it.

Tamatoa scowled, then turned towards the horizon. There were plenty of places where he could go, of course. Plenty more islands he could make his own. But why should he bother wandering aimlessly when his destination was so obvious to him now? There was only one place where he should go, the one his grandma would never shut up about, where he should have been along and where they were supposed to return one day.

But she had died without seeing it again, killed by an underwater volcanic eruption before they could return to Lalotai - or even before she could tell him the way so he could make it there on his own. He had shrugged it off, in the end, and remained on the island he knew: Lalotai had been just a name and some tales until Maui had shown him the way to reach it.

And now that he could no longer bear to stay where he was, once again thanks to Maui, it only made sense for him to return. He had one path to walk, and one path only, from there to Lalotai. Tamatoa turned to give one last look at the island where he’d grown up before leaving it for good, heading back to the home of his ancestors.

The realm of monsters.

***

“So. What do you think? Do I make a convincing monster?”

“Mmh. Remember when you walked into my lair dressed up like a shiny… thing?”

“Yes?”

“This is worse. No one with half a brain is going to be fooled for a second.”

“Hey, that disguise did fool you for a few moments!”

“That’s why I said this one is worse, babe.”

With a sigh, Moana wiped some mud off her cheek and looked down at herself. All right, so mud, sticks, leaves and coconut shells didn’t really make a great disguise, but it wasn’t like she had much else to work with. Maui had made it clear she couldn’t just walk in looking like a human; Moana wished he’d mentioned that earlier, when she was still with her people and she could get her hands on something more convincing. “Fine, maybe it’s not so good.”

“It really sucks.”

“Noted, thanks.”

“It does make you look even uglier than usual, but doesn’t go all the way to monster-ugly.”

“I said noted. Any suggestions to make it better?” she asked. Tamatoa frowned, tapping his chin with a pincer and glancing up at her. The wound on the back of his neck had closed up for the most part, and he seemed able to move without discomfort again. Moana would have marveled again at the speed of his recovery if she wasn’t too busy being annoyed.

“I’d be inclined to say ‘be shiny’, but I guess you’re referring to the disguise and not general life advice. How about–”

“How about a mask?”

Both Moana and Tamatoa turned to see Maui holding up something that looked absolutely nothing like a mask. It was only a crude square of tree bark, with three holes for, Moana assumed, her eyes and mouth. Moana blinked.

“That’s not a mask. That’s… I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a mask.”

“No worries, we’re gonna make it work. It will just need a few finishing touches. Like antlers, more mud, a cloak, and Crabcake.”

Moana blinked and turned to glance at Tamatoa, who in turn was glancing at her, confusion plain on his face. They both turned to Maui.

“Fine. I’ll bite. What do I have to do with her disguise?”

Maui grinned, holding up both the makeshift mask and a cloak made out of dead leaves. “You’ll be part of it - that will make her a lot more convincing, and hide you at the same time. Two birds with one stone and all that. Moana, pick him up and get him on your back.”

“What?”

“Hey, hey. Who’s the shapeshifter here? The master of disguise? Is it either of you? Didn’t think so,” Maui said with a grin when both Moana and Tamatoa looked away. “C’mon, we don’t have all day. Just pick him up.”

Tamatoa wasn’t much bigger than Pua at the moment, but he was definitely heavier and a whole lot whinier. “Careful there! My neck still hurts,” he grumbled when Moana hoisted him on her back. He immediately clung to her torso with all legs, pincers over her shoulders. His eyestalks peered from behind her neck. “What do you even do with so much hair?”

“No talking, Crabby. You’re part of the disguise,” Maui reminded him, and went to throw the cloak over Moana’s shoulders. “Okay, now let me handle this…”

It took a while and it wasn’t very pleasant, with the weight on her back, mud drying on her skin and the bark mask making her face itch, but it was worth it: when Maui stepped aside to let her take a look at her reflection on a slab of gold they had found on the Kakamora’s ship, she could almost believe she was looking at a monster.

The piece of wood she refused to call a mask was very clearly not a face, but Maui said that plenty of monsters and such hid their features, so no one would question it, and the polished branches on it did look a lot like actual antlers. The cloak on her hid Tamatoa from sight, but his presence made it look like she had a severely misshapen back, with kinda helped. The drying mud could be mistaken for scaly, flaking skin as long as one didn’t look too closely, and Tamatoa’s limbs clinging to her torso looked like grotesque, exposed ribs. Also, it looked a lot like she had crab pincers coming out of the sides of her neck.

“This is… actually pretty good,” she admitted, and saw Tamatoa’s eye peering at the reflection from over her shoulder.

“Well, good to know. You got me all muddy, so at least it should be worth it.”

Moana frowned, gaze turning towards the horizon, where she could make out the shape of the rock formation around the Vault - the remains of a once-active volcano. “… Wait. Isn’t the water going to wash off the mud?“

“Not that water, it isn’t. It isn’t even really water - just the illusion of it to keep the entrance hidden,” Maui said, and handed Moana a folded piece of cloth with some of the Kakamora’s treasure in it. “Here you go. This is what you’ll pretend to be there to trade. Also, watch your back. Someone might decide to cut your throat and take it all.”

Oh. Great. “… How often does that happen in the Vault?”

“Pretty often,” Tamatoa supplied helpfully.

“Often enough to be considered a form of transaction,” Maui admitted. “A ‘your money and your life’ sort of deal.”

“Sometimes it’s worse than others, though. Like the mess with that Talamaur.”

“A what?”

“Some really ugly guy who tore someone’s chest open to eat the heart while it was still beating. To consume the soul or something? Anyway, he made a complete mess of it and he also took the guy’s stuff. Talk about greedy.”

The mask prevented from Maui to notice Moana had gone a little green in the face, but he seemed to guess it anyway, because he immediately spoke up. “Yeah, it can get a bit messy. And I mean, you don’t have to come. If you’d rather wait–”

“No, no,” Moana said quickly, holding the bag with the gold a bit tighter. She wasn’t going to just sit and wait; she’d told him she’d help, and that was precisely what she would do. And, to be totally honest, she wasn’t too sure letting those two go anywhere together and unsupervised was such a good idea. “I’m good. I’m coming in with you.”

Maui nodded. “Well, all right. Some of the stuff you see may not be pretty but hey, no worries - I’ll be watching over you.”

“I feel so safe,” Tamatoa said drily.

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Maui said lightly, and grabbed his hook. “Okay. Time to get going. Ready for the flight?”

“No.”

“NO.”

As it turned out, Tamatoa was even less enthusiastic about flying than she was. It did make Moana feel a bit better, despite the fact his grip on her torso tightened enough to almost make her fear he’d crack a rib or two.

“I’m never letting him do this again,” Tamatoa said, his voice a couple of octaves higher than usual, as soon as Maui put Moana down on the rocky ground before the entrance to the Vault. Moana staggered a bit, head still spinning, but at least she didn’t feel like she was close to fainting. It was a step forward, she supposed.

“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” Maui muttered. “Chee-hoo!”

His hawk form vanished, replaced by something smaller - a crow. He perched himself on Moana’s shoulder. “And here’s my disguise. We’re ready to–” There was the clack of a pincer closing, and a yelp, before Maui abruptly took off, flapping his wings. A few black tail feathers fell on the sand. “Ow! Really, Crabby?”

“Couldn’t resist,” Tamatoa said. Moana couldn’t see his grin, but she could definitely hear it in his voice. She held back a chuckle - best not to encourage him - and turned her attention back on Maui.

“Can’t you turn into something smaller? You’re heavy,” she pointed out. Her shoulders still kind of hurt from the moment she’d been tugged upwards by one arm while holding onto Maui’s dead weight with the other, but she could carry a bag of gold, and she could carry a crab the size of a piglet on her back - but a large bird on her shoulder as well was kind of pushing it.

Maui rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. Humans,” he muttered. “Chee-hoo!”

The crow vanished, replaced by a much smaller, yellow bird. “There. Happy now?”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t not being recognized the point of a disguise?”

“Sure it is.”

“And you turn into a Maui ‘alauahio of all birds?” she asked. Maui shrugged, at much as a bird in flight can.

“So what? No one will recognize me at all. I just like to slip in a bit of subtle irony.”

“Subtle,” Tamatoa muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. Maui ignored him and went to rest on one of her fake antlers, well out of Tamatoa’s reach.

“There. And I’m super light, too. Are we ready to go now?”

Moana wasn’t entirely sure she could consider herself ready, especially with such a nebulous idea of what the Vault was really like, but it wasn’t like she could step back. They had wasted enough time as it was, she thought, and walked up to the pool of still water hiding the entrance to whatever lay below.

“Ready,” she said, and stepped into the Vault.

***

Maui had missed plenty of things in the thousand years he had spent alone on that island.

He had missed company, for one, the attention he got from humans or just plainly the chance to talk with somebody else who could talk back to him; speaking to Mini Maui got really old really fast, as he was unable to word any real reply. It had been a frustrating, lonely millennium.

He had also missed his fishhook, of course, and the power it gave him; he had missed all of the forms he’d been able to take, and all that it entailed. He had missed soaring through the skies and diving into the depths of the ocean, changing from one skin to the other as easily as most would breathe. He had missed the power that came with being, well. Maui. Trickster, shapeshifter, demigod of wind and sea; powerless and trapped, he’d felt like none of those things for a long time.

He had missed all of it and more; and, until he returned into the Vault that day, he hadn’t realized he had missed that place, too.

What had been the ancient volcano’s main chamber was swarming with activity, monsters and, most importantly, treasure. Treasure piled in heaps, with beings of all shapes and sizes guarding their share, and others going back and forth to trade, or to just plainly try stealing something valuable. Somewhere on their right a rather dumb-looking Hotua Poro tried to do just that, with the result of being caught and torn to pieces by a boar-headed demon.

Maui found it kind of funny, but Moana hadn’t noticed and he decided not to draw her attention to it. “All right, here we are,” he said instead. They were standing on top of a small rocky formation overseeing the main crater. “Use your monster voice, don’t look at anyone in the eye, and just pretend you’re interested in looking. Crabby, you keep your eyes peeled for anything you recognize and most of all, keep those pincers off the merchandise. If they catch you stealing anything, you and Moana may be dead before you can say ‘shiny’ one last time.”

Tamatoa huffed. “Remember that you said–”

“I know what I said. You’ll have treasure. I just need you to see if you can find the hairpin anywhere first. Once I have it, or if it’s not here, we’ll wreak havoc and take what you want.”

“So you’ll restore me to full size?”

“Yep. Well, Moana will, right before she gets out of the way.”

“Hey, I can–”

“I know exactly what you can do,” Maui cut her off. “Not gonna forget that anytime soon. But Tamatoa and I will be enough to win this one. No need to get yourself in the middle of it,” he added, and let his gaze wander on the entrance of one of the small tunnels that opened up on the sides of the long-extinguished crater. There weren’t many places to hide in the Vault, but those would work just fine for Moana to keep out of a fight. “All right, let’s get going. Remember, you’re a monster. Act like one.”

To her credit, she was convincing enough: when she wobbled among the monsters moving throughout the cave - hey, was that a Hantu Penyardin? He didn’t think there were any left - none of them acknowledged her aside from passing glances to the cloth she was holding, filled with golden trinkets from the Kakamora’s treasure that Tamatoa had decided he could do without. So far, so good: none of them had realized she was human, at least judging from the fact no one had decided to tear her apart.

And none of them realized it later, as Moana walked around undisturbed to carefully look at the treasures and trinkets - or rather, to let Tamatoa take a good look from behind her shoulder, while pretending to be especially interested in hairpins. At one point she bumped into a rather mean-looking being that looked much like a human, but with gills and what was clearly a shark’s dorsal fin; she mumbled an apology and, thankfully, the guy wasn’t up for trouble.

“See anything you recognize?” she asked under her breath, keeping an eye out for the monster that particular pile belonged to - a slimy, slug-like thing. Tamatoa’s eyes scanned the display and, once again, he let out a disappointed huff. “Nope, nothing of mine here. Not that I’d mind taking some either way…”

“Later,” Maui muttered, his voice just as low. “C’mon, let’s get looking–” he began, only to trail off when something caused the feathers on his back to stand on end. He whipped his head around, something in his mind telling him that he was being watched, but he could see nothing unusual behind them: only a bunch of demons, monsters and other misfits going on with their business, trading valuables or stealing them with each other, every interaction underlined by snorts, shouts, curses and growls. Tensions were growing, but there hadn’t been an actual fight just yet; Maui suspected it was only a matter of time before one broke out, with or without their contribution.

“… Maui? Did you just fall quiet? Should we get worried, babe?”

Tamatoa’s voice reached him as though from a mile away. He shook his head and glanced down. “I really hope I didn’t just hear you call me ‘babe’.”

“Pffft, you wish.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Don’t get your hopes up, I was asking the human.”

“Is something wrong?” Moana asked, moving away from the display they’d been looking at.

“I don’t think so. Just a hunch. Let’s search the rest of this place quickly and–”

He never got to finish the sentence, because a moment later something grabbed Moana’s wrist and yanked, dragging her - and, by extension, him and Tamatoa - through the opening of the tunnel they were talking past. Moana let out a yelp that sounded absolutely nothing like the monster voice she was supposed to use. “Hey! What–”

“All right, I’ll bite. What are you doing here, you semi-godly pain in the tail?”

Maui felt Moana wince beneath him before she whirled around to see who had talked. Maui turned with her, still perched on the fake antlers, but he may as well not have: he knew that gruff and yet weirdly melodic voice, and he knew exactly who had spoken before he even saw the humanoid-bird shape towering over them. Partly human-looking, mostly bird, with formidable talons and a long beak, Matuku Tangotango hadn’t changed one bit.

“I… I think you have the wrong guy,” Moana said, in the husky voice she’d practiced, and the being before them rolled his eyes, his long brown-feathered neck bobbing for a moment.

“Oh no, I don’t. Wasn’t talking to you, human. Maui, last time I checked you knew better than involving mortals in your… whatever the crap you do is. Also, wasn’t your bird form a bit bigger than that? Not overcompensating anymo–”

“Hah! See? It wasn’t subtle at all. Good job there, master of disguise!”

Matuku trailed off and blinked down at Moana again, or so it looked like. Then he spoke again, and it became clear it wasn’t her he was staring at: he was looking at the pincers seemingly coming out of her neck, at the exposed ribs that were not ribs at all and, of course, at the eyes peering at him from behind Moana’s neck.

“Huh. My memory is not as great as it used to be - bird brain and all that - but I am rather sure you were a faaaair bit larger than this last time, Tama. What happened to you, bud?”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “What do you think happened to me? Take a wild guess.”

“Maui?”

“You got it.”

“Go figure. Making a habit out of getting folks in trouble, huh?”

Fine, fine, that was enough. “Really? A thousand-something years since last time we met and the first thing you do is dissing me?” Maui protested.

Matuku opened his beak to let out a cackling sound. “What was that? Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of you messing with the Goddess of Creation and getting darkness to spread through the world. Not that I complained, old pal, but some were less than happy about how that particular trick turned out. You could have at least have tried to do something sooner instead of taking a thousand years long vacation.”

“That’s… not exactly how it happened.”

“Yes, he also got his butt kicked first,” Tamatoa piped in. “Struck out of the sky. Lost his hook, lost his powers, and was ridiculously weak without them. Get your facts right, man.”

Maui gave what would have been a scoff in his human form, but only sounded like especially angry peeping in his current one. “Thanks. One can always count on you for some help.”

“Anytime.”

“… Huh. Excuse me?” Moana called out, waving a hand. “Can someone fill me in? Anyone?”

Before Maui could say anything, Matuku gave an exaggerated bow that almost resulted with his beak getting stuck in the ground after narrowly missing Moana’s arm. “Right, right. Sorry for grabbing your arm like that. Name’s Matuku Tangotango, Poukai extraordinaire, but not in the habit of eating humans because I really wouldn’t be in such friendly terms with Maui here if that were the case.”

“Yeah, you’d probably be a leg short,” Tamatoa muttered sourly, but no one really listened to him. The mask on Moana’s face hid her features, but when she spoke Maui could easily picture her raising an eyebrow.

“I have questions about your definition of ‘friendly terms’.”

“Haha! No worries, mortal, it’s always been like this. A bit of joking around, the occasional battle of wits I win without fail, and no harm done. More to the point, I have questions about your presence here, huh… I’d say ‘mortal’ again, but it would be a repetition and I assume you have a first name. Does your kind still do first names?”

“Moana.”

“Charmed. Absolutely charmed. I’m sure you look lovely under that mask. And the mud. And the crab,” Matuku said, and looked back at Maui. “So. What is she doing here?”

Maui shrugged. “Helping me out on a small quest.”

A sigh, and feathered arms crossed over a feathered chest. “I’m afraid I need to ask you what this quest of yours entails.”

“Why? Wanna join in?”

“Nah, I’m good. Getting old for this crap. It’s just that, you know, the last quest of yours any of us heard about kinda resulted in darkness spreading through the world. If we’re gonna have to run for cover again, it would be great to know it now, so I can get a head start.”

Maui grinned, as much as you can grin with a beak. He had no idea how Matuku could be that expressive all the time. “Oh, but there’s also the other quest you didn’t hear about - me stopping the darkness!”

“I thought the human did,” Tamatoa pointed out.

“… Well, yes. But I helped.”

“You can’t have been that useful. When you left my lair you couldn’t even control your shapeshifting powers.”

“Hey, you weren’t there, okay? How would you know–”

“Oh! Wanna know how I almost ate him? The human had to save him, or else he’d be–”

“We’re trying to recover some treasure,” Moana spoke up, cutting him off, and Maui couldn’t help but feeling a pang of gratitude. “Some monsters stole it from Tamatoa while he was, uh… incapacitated?”

“That’s a way to put it,” Tamatoa said sourly.

“Right. So, we figured some of his treasure may have made its way here.”

Matuku blinked, clearly taken aback, and glanced at Tamatoa’s eyestalks poking out from behind Moana’s shoulders. “First you get shrunk, and then you lose your treasure?”

“It was the other way around, but yeah.”

“This is not your best week, is it?”

“And it was Maui’s fault both times!”

Maui rolled his eyes. “Look, shrinking you was actually useful, okay? We’re looking for your treasure right now and don’t even get me started on how you tried to eat me,” he muttered, then looked back at Matuku. “We have recovered some from the Kakamora - hope you weren’t waiting for them to join you here, by the way, ‘cause I don’t think that’s going to happen - and we figured this would be the best place to start looking.”

“And looking for treasure is all you’re doing, right?”

Maui did is best to look absolutely innocent. “Of course!”

“You’re not going to mess with some other scarily powerful goddess, are you?” Matuku said, and tilted his head on one side. Maui forced himself to keep up the innocent act.

“Why would you think a such thing?”

“Tell me you’re not, Maui. I need to hear those words and to hear them now.”

“… Would a musical number do instead?”

Matuku groaned, reaching to rub the sides of his head. “Oh gods, I knew it,” he muttered. “Who are you going to piss off this time around, Maui? I know it can’t be worse than Te Fiti, but–” he began, only to trail off when Maui’s grin widened. He blinked, then let his arms-wings fall limply by his sides. “… It’s not worse than that, is it?”

“Naaaah,” Maui replied. It was the most unconvincing denial he’d ever uttered.

“… Maui, in Tagaloa’s name, who is it you’re going to piss off?”

From over Moana’s shoulders, Tamatoa’s eyestalks turned up in puzzlement. “Wait a moment, what are you two even talking about? Maui just needs a hairpin. Isn’t that right? Human? Isn’t that what he wants?”

Moana shifted uneasily. “Well. That would be Step One.”

“And what’s Step Two?”

“Seeing his family.”

“… Weren’t they mortals? I’m not the expert Maui is on you humans, but wouldn’t that mean they’d be sorta dead after five thousand years? Maui, what do you need that hairpin for anyway? Wasn’t it some kind of sappy sentimental thing? Am I missing something here?”

All right, now that was getting kind of awkward and wasting time they did not have to waste in the first place, Maui decided. After taking a quick look around to make sure no one was there to see him, he leaped off Moana’s fake antlers and landed on the floor in his usual form. “If you don’t mind, my old pal and I are going to have a quick chat,” Maui said, grasping Matuku’s arm-wing and leading him down the tunnel. “I’ll be right back. How about you take one last look around meanwhile? Just don’t draw attention and you’ll be fine,” he called out over his shoulder, and disappeared with Matuku behind a bend without realizing that his suggestion had one huge, fundamental flaw.

Regardless the size, it was absolutely impossible for Tamatoa to go anywhere at all and not draw attention on himself.

***

“Okay, but what does he need the hairpin for?”

Moana bit her lower lip, not quite knowing what to reply. It was something so personal for Maui, she wasn’t sure it was her place to tell anybody else. “… I think it would be best to ask him after we’re out of here,” she finally said, moving past a monster with a lot more limbs than anybody should reasonably need.

“But he won’t tell me!”

“You can try asking nicely.”

“Oh, sure. Ask me to impale myself on a spike as well, won’t you?” Tamatoa said dramatically, and Moana couldn’t hold back a chuckle. She was rather thankful of the fact a lot of the… beings in there made odd noises and muttered to no one in particular: it kept her from standing out by seemingly talking to herself.

“Let’s keep looking. If you see the hairpin, just let me know and we’ll go get Maui, all right?”

“Sure, sure. Let’s get on with– hey, wait a moment. That stuff looks familiar! Get closer - there, the guy with the dumb mask…”

The moment Moana turned to see exactly who Tamatoa was pointing at, she knew he was right - if anything because the thing, something resembling a blot of darkness of vaguely humanoid shape with its features hidden behind a distinctive mask, was familiar to her as well. It was one of the beings she had met in Lalotai the first time she’d been there, the one that had crept up almost close enough to grab her before being shot up through the air by a geyser. The realization was accompanied by a mixture of dread and excitement, because at least that meant they might be on the right track.

“All right, I’ll get closer so you can take a good look–”

“HEY! YOU! THIEF!”

“No, wait–” Moana tried to call out, but it was too late: the next moment Tamatoa had launched himself off her back to fall on the floor, in plain sight. Which, of course, resulted in absolutely everybody around them to pause and turn to look at them.

“Human! Turn me back my usual size!”

Moana’s eyes shifted from monster to monster. They all were staring at them, surprise quickly giving way to something else, and absolutely none of them looked friendly. Tamatoa seemed to realize as much, and spoke again with a note of urgency in his voice. “What are you waiting for? Turn me back!”

“I… I don’t know how,” Moana admitted, her mouth dry.

“… What?”

“Maui never told me how to do it!”

Tamatoa turned to glance at her, blinking, claw still held up. She shrugged helplessly, and he turned back to the beings around them, eyes shifting from the bared teeth and claws to the weapons some of them were starting to pull out. The monster he had screamed at, the twisted thing with the mask, tilted its head aside and lifted a clawed hand.

Tamatoa lowered his pincer. “Ah,” he said.

Moana sighed, and reached to take a golden spear from a heap of treasures with her right hand while letting go of her bag to free the left one, where she still wore the bracelet. She figured that she could ward off a few of them by shrinking them and then beating the crap out of them, but they were too many for her to defeat entirely without help.

“I think this is the part where we start screaming for Maui to come quickly,” Moana said, holding up the spear and taking a step back. Tamatoa immediately scrambled to hide behind her leg.

“… Yeah,” he croaked. “Let’s do that.”

***

“Hine-nui-te-pō? That’s who you’re going to mess with next? Seriously?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Maybe. If you can stop yelling–”

“First you mess with the goddess of life, and now with the goddess of death? What are you trying to do, collect the full set?”

“Look, I wouldn’t do it if it would be avoided, but the only way to–”

“Hine-nui-te-pō, Maui! Remember what happened last time you tried to get past her?”

Maui shuffled his feet. “… You had promised to never speak of it again.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of the worst idea you ever had.”

“Nope. Taking the Heart of Te Fiti was worse. If this goes wrong, I’ll be the only one to take the fall,” Maui said, his voice low. “No one else will be any worse off. I’ll make sure of it.”

Matuku sighed, crossing his arms. “Is that supposed to make me feel any better? I’d begun thinking you were dead, you idiot. Now you pop up again and tell me you’ll risk your hide again with a suicidal mission?”

“Hey now, who says it’s suicidal?”

“Getting into the realm of the dead does sound pretty suicidal to me.”

“At least we know I’ll be right where I want to be no matter what happens, huh?”

There was a noise halfway between a chortle and a groan. “May Tagaloa help us all,” Matuku muttered. “You know what, fine. Have it your way.”

Maui shrugged. “That’s only going to happen if we find my mother’s hairpin in the first place, or else a trip to the Underworld would be entirely useless. We haven’t had much luck so far.”

“And you were hoping to find it here?”

“I couldn’t think of many other places where I’d go if I were a Lalotai monster in a hurry to trade stolen treasure,” Maui pointed out. “Have you got any more ideas?”

Matuku frowned,tapping his beak. “Actually, now that you mention it, there have been a some Lalotai folks around here in the past few days,” he said slowly, causing Maui to blink.

“What, really?”

“Yes. And they did seem in a hurry to trade. Most if not all have already left, but I’m pretty sure I saw then trading with a bunch of Taniwha - sheesh, I loathe those guys - and some… huh. I can’t remember what you call ‘em, the ugly pale guys who hate the sun?”

“Ponaturi?” Maui suggested. There was no love lost between him and those goblins, and that had a lot to do with the fact sunlight was fatal to them. They hadn’t taken it kindly to Maui and Tamatoa slowing down the sun to make the day last longer, not one bit, and now it sounded like it was time to rekindle the old animosity.

Unaware of his thoughts, Matuku nodded. “Yes, those! They and the Taniwha took plenty of the treasure the Lalotai creeps brought in before leaving, let me think… two days ago?”

If not for the Kakamora, we wouldn’t have missed them.

Maui made an effort to ignore the thought and nodded, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “That’s not going to be a problem. I know where to find them,” he said, thinking quickly. Leaving from the Vault, and if the weather stayed good, they’d reach Manawa-Tane in a couple of days at most; that meant they’d pay a visit to the Ponaturi first, and then, if they didn’t have the hairpin, they’d head south for the Taniwha’s hiding place. “If we don’t find the hairpin here, I know where to look next. Thanks, buddy. I owe you one. Wanna join in?”

Matuku made a face. “No, thanks. I’ll pass. Seeing what happened last time was enough. Just… if you need to find a route past Hine-nui-te-pō, try looking for one that’s less toothed than last time, why don’t you?” he added, causing Maui to sigh.

“Heard you loud and clear,” he muttered. “I’ll figure something out when I–” he began, only to trail off when something suddenly drowned out his voice: a piercing shriek, immediately followed by roars and shouts, and the unmistakable sounds of a fight. “What the…?”

“You weren’t really expecting good old Tama not to draw attention on himself, were you?” Matuku asked, deadpanned. On Maui’s chest, Mini Maui and Mini Moana slapped a hand on their faces almost simultaneously. Maui sighed.

“… Come to think of it, not really,” he admitted. “Well, got to save their skins. Been good to catch up. Let’s do this again sometime!” he called out over his shoulder as he charged back to the main chamber, the fishhook held tightly in his hand, ready for the fight.

Into the tunnel, Matuku gave a long-suffering sigh. “May the gods help you,” he muttered, his voice entirely lost as the sounds of the fight turned into those of a full-fledged battle.

***

“I left you alone five minutes! Literally - AAAGH! - five minutes!”

“It wasn’t me! It was the human!”

“I don’t believe it for a second!”

“Maui! I need you to tell me–”

“But it’s her fault! She doesn’t even know how to turn me back!”

“That’s because - not today, buddy! - I didn’t tell her!”

“Yes, well, if you could - iti haere! - tell me now–”

“I had told you not to try stealing anything!”

“I didn’t! Human, tell him!”

“Well, did he?”

“No, he didn’t– look out!”

“Hey, good shot! Hadn’t seen that one!”

“Thanks! I mean– look, just tell me how to turn him back his usual size!”

“Should we? We’re doing so well on our own…”

“Maui!”

“Fine, fine. Just say– YOU SON OF A–”

“Seriously, man?”

“Wasn’t talking to you! I just saved your shell here, can you try being a little more grateful–”

“MAUI!”

“Fine, fine! Just say ‘whakatipu’!”

“Human! Human, do it now!”

“Whakatipu!”

There was a loud, ear-splitting roar that seemed to shake the world, drowning out all the sounds of the battle - or at least it would have if the battle hadn’t entirely stopped, every single being frozen still as they looked up at the huge, snorting boar-headed monstrosity that had suddenly appeared in their midst. It stared down at them with bloodshot eyes, and within seconds everyone had scattered away, dropping all weapons and treasure, leaving only Maui, Moana and Tamatoa to stand before the giant.

“I should have specified,” Maui said lightly, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “You were supposed to point at the crab when you said it , Miss Master Wayfinder.”

“I was! This guy just jumped in the way and–”

“HUMAN!”

Tamatoa’s terrified shriek came one moment before the being roared and lifted the huge club he was holding, ready to bring it down on them, and its roar drowned out Moana’s next cry.

“Wakatipu!”

Looking back, it would have made a lot more sense to shrink the enemy back to his normal size, but to be honest Moana had sort of panicked; facing a giant monster about to turn you into a wet stain on the ground can do that. But it worked just as well: when the club came down with terrible force it never hit the intended target, because something grabbed it in mid-air: an equally huge and wonderfully familiar claw. Tamatoa grinned at the giant, his pincer clenching into the wooden club, and turned one eyestalk to glance down at them.

“Hey, Maui,” he called out. “You joining in, or are you going to miss out the fun?”

Maui laughed. “Like you need asking!” he said, and lifted his hook. “Take cover and watch this, Moana! Chee-hoo!”

For a moment - only a moment - Moana considered pointing out that there was no need to battle it while it was that huge, that she could easily turn it back to normal. But truth be told, after listening to their tales, she was a bit curious to see for herself what those two were capable of when fighting together. So she did as Maui had said and moved out of the way to watch the fight.

Still, she kept herself ready to use her bracelet if things took a wrong turn. Just in case.

***

[Back to Chapter 8]

[On to Chapter 10]

#moana waialiki #maui #tamatoa #moana #oceania

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pengychan · 7 years

Text

Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 5

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“Hu-uh.”

“You sure? You look kinda distracted. Didn’t even hit that Megalodon like you meant it, you know? Left all the hard work to me. I mean, I could handle it, so no worries! Got a cool tooth out of it. Not shiny, so no problem if I keep this one, right?”

A shrug, and no real answer. Maui frowned, then walked up to Tamatoa. He was resting at the very edge of a ravine, one of the many in Lalotai, but it was clear he wasn’t paying any actual attention to whatever was below. Maui sat next to him, letting his legs dangle into the abyss. He stayed silent for a few moments, kicking his legs. A piece of rock fell down into the darkness, making no noise as though it never reached any bottom at all.

“… You were thinking we would find someone of your same species, right?”

Tamatoa let out a small grunt, and for a moment it looked like he wouldn’t add anything. Then he did, idly scratching his chin with a claw. “I guess,” he finally said. “I mean, Gran went on and on about this place, you know? How this is where we were supposed to be, how we’d be coming back when I got big enough to fend for myself, and so on. So I just assumed there would be more of us here.”

More of you. Because she’s gone and now it’s starting to look like you’re the last.

“Yeah,” Maui said slowly. “I can see why you’d think–”

“And you assumed I was from Lalotai when we met,” Tamatoa went on, now turning to look at him. “You said you’d seen others like me here.”

He had, but only few times; Tamatoa’s kind had been rare already when Maui had been a boy and first went to Lalotai. Even rarer after he left it, as a couple of them had tried to turn him into their dinner and hadn’t lived to see the next day, but saying as much suddenly seemed a rather bad idea, so Maui kept that detail for himself.

“Not many, really,” he admitted. “The numbers had been falling for a long time. There were probably few left by the time you were born,” he said, and shot another glance upwards. Tamatoa was still staring into the dark; he didn’t look saddened, not really, but he was uncharacteristically expressionless and his antennae were limp. Maui knew that meant he wasn’t very happy, either. He sighed, and reached up to rub his neck.

“I should have taken you here sooner,” he finally said. Sure, he’d offered to do so before, but only as an off-hand mention until that day. If he’d seriously brought it up, say, a thousand years earlier, would they have found someone of his species still alive? “I didn’t think… I mean, you seemed pretty happy on your own. Never thought it would be important for you to meet someone else from your species. If I’d known–”

But I should have known, he thought. I should have known because it was the same reason why I wanted to return among men, wasn’t it? Because godly powers and all, I still felt I was one of them. I wanted to be.

Unaware of Maui’s thoughts, Tamatoa blinked and turned to look at him. For a moment, he seemed almost confused. “I am pretty happy on my own,” he said, then paused, as though going over the statement in his head a second time. “… Yep. I like my island and I’ve got my treasure there. Never really needed to come back here, you know? Would have been nice to meet someone else like me, but…” a pause, then he shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll live. Plus, we’re not that sure I’m the last, right? There might be a few more somewhere else. The ocean is pretty big. If I grew up away from here, then maybe someone else did too.”

It seemed unlikely to Maui, but it was still within the realms of possibility, and he nodded, reaching to give Tamatoa’s side a punch. “Oh, yes. Maybe a female, who knows? So that you can settle down, and become her fix of protein as soon as she has a clutch of eggs to look after.”

Tamatoa made a face. “Oh. right. That part.”

“I mean, not all of them do that, you know? Some wait until the eggs have hatched, so the dad gets to take a look at his brood before becoming her breakfast as well as their first mea–”

“I think I got the gist of it, thanks.”

Maui laughed. “Why so squeamish now? Pretty sure you said you ate your ma and grandma.”

“They were already dead, thank you so very much.”

“If I didn’t know you, I’d almost say you don’t like the idea of being killed to feed your brood.”

“Well, duh,” Tamatoa muttered, then shrugged again. “At least now I see why my species is mostly gone, though. No one with half a brain would want to breed at these conditions. Only idiots who beget more idiots who’ll probably die some dumb way very quickly.”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “… Wouldn’t that make you an idiot?”

Tamatoa shook his head. “Nope. I got Ma’s brains,” he said, and grinned. “I mean that literally. I ate–”

“All right, all right! Enough!” Maui cut him off, and Tamatoa laughed.

“Look who’s being squeamish now,” he sneered. Maui was about to retort when he heard something coming from the darkness below them. He peered in and realization as to what it was - claws scraping against stone as something climbed up on the almost vertical wall - hit him just one instant too late. He stood with a warning cry, but before he could lift his hook something emerged from the darkness with a roar, a huge mouth wide open to show razor-sharp, gleaming fangs.

Had he had a few more instants before impact, Maui would have realized said mouth and fangs belonged to a huge lizard with scales red as blood. But he was given no more time before the being slammed against him, knocking the hook off his hand, and tried to swallow him.

Tried to, because the moment it tried to bite down Maui reached up with both hands and caught the roof of the beast’s mouth, causing it to growl - gods, did that guy’s breath stink - and try with all his might to bite down harder. The power in that maw would have annihilated any mortal, but of course he was no mortal; he had lifted up the sky, so of course he could hold up a some monster’s mouth open.

Except that it was really strong. Except that the roof of that mouth was so slippery. Except that if he lost his grip, even for a second, if his hands slipped–

“Hey!”

Tamatoa’s voice reached Maui’s ears only one moment before a loud thud, and the next instant it was as though all air had been knocked out of the monster in a gust of fetid wind that blew Maui out of its maw. He landed on the stone floor, immediately flipped in a crouch, and looked up - trying to ignore the disgusting slickness of saliva on his skin and gods, it was in his hair - to see that the thing who’d tried to eat him was a giant, red lizard. And that said lizard was currently snapping and thrashing, clearly furious, under the weight of a certain giant crab.

“Hey! A little help?” Tamatoa called out, trying to keep the lizard pinned down with his claws, the sharp teeth and claws leaving scratches on his carapace.

Maui grinned, and reached for his hook, which had fallen nearby.

Not a bad save, buddy. Not bad at all.

“Help coming up,” he called out, and his hand closed on the hook’s handle.

***

“… And that’s how I saved his life.”

“You did not.”

“It does sound like he saved your life…” Moana said slowly, and shrugged apologetically at Maui’s accusing glance. She didn’t see the smug look Tamatoa gave Maui from behind her, but she had no doubt that was precisely what he was doing, because Maui glowered at him before crossing his arms.

“I had everything perfectly under control.”

“Sure. Until your arms got tired, and then…”

“I could have snapped that lizard in two with both hands tied behind my ba–”

“No you couldn’t!”

Moana winced, because that raspy voice didn’t belong to either Maui and Tamatoa. She turned suddenly, hair whipping the air and hand reaching for her oar. Emerging from the water, illuminated by nothing but the moonlight, was something massive and scaly. Yellow eyes gleamed as though giving out a light of their own. It was the head of a… a…

… Really now?

“What are you doing here?” Tamatoa snapped, turning to face the newcomer just as Maui grabbed the fishhook. “I mean, I do agree that he couldn’t have gotten out of it in his own - that’s what I said - but–”

“Pilifeai,” Maui snarled, cutting him off. “Why did you follow us?”

The huge lizard shrugged, or at last that was what Moana judged it had just done. With all of its body underwater it was hard to tell, although every movement caused ripples. “I didn’t. I was just having a swim here.”

Maui raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with Tamatoa. “Oooh, sure. Heard that? He was just passing by.”

“Of course. And I’m a red lobster,” Tamatoa snorted. He snapped his claws. “You know, I think I’m going to cut off that forked tongue this time around. Pretty sure you called me a bottom-feeder last time…”

“Fine, fine,” the giant lizard - Pilifeai, wasn’t that how Maui had called him? - conceded, taking a few steps back into the sea. “Maybe I was following you.”

“What for? I’m pretty sure you said something on how you knew better than getting involved in anything we’re up to,” Maui pointed out.

“I do. So I’m not getting involved. Just watching to find out who’s going to kill the other first.”

Maui blinked. “… Seriously?”

“Yes. You’ve been a bore so far, if I may add. I’d have expected the crab here to have lost at least another limb by now.”

“Hey!” Tamatoa protested, while Maui shrugged.

“You can blame her. She told me not to.”

“Maui!” Moana and Tamatoa snapped precisely at the same time. The lizard’s eyes paused on Moana for the first time since the surreal exchange had started.

“Oh. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I am Pilifeai. And you’re the human who kicked the crustacean on his back, aren’t you? Leaving him all alone and powerless when his treasure was stolen…”

Tamatoa scowled, and Moana barely held back a groan. Oh, great, that was just what she needed the giant monster crab to be reminded of, just to make all of her efforts to be pleasant for nothing. “Actually, it was a geyser that knocked him back and–” she began, only to pause when she noticed a flash of white in the redness of Pilifeai’s scales - a grin. Realization hit her suddenly, and it was her turn to scowl. “Wait a moment. Are you trying to pit us against each other right now?”

Pilifeai sighed in clear disappointment. “Well, I’ll be. The human is smarter than both of– ow!” he trailed off with a yelp when the coconut Moana had thrown hit him between the eyes. “Seriously?”

“Scram.”

“I don’t take orders from a huma–”

Maui lifted his hook. Tamatoa snapped a claw shut. Pilifeai’s gaze moved between them for a few moments before he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I don’t usually listen to humans…”

Moana smiled so widely that her cheeks hurt. “But you’ll make an exception this time.”

“Absolutely.”

“And you won’t follow us any further,” Maui warned. “Or you’ll be sorry.”

“Of course,” the giant lizard said quickly, and backed away; within moments, his head had disappeared under the water. A few moments of silence followed.

“… He’ll keep following us,” Tamatoa finally said, and Maui sighed.

“I’m ready to bet he will.”

Moana didn’t like the thought. Even though the lizard seemed to fear Maui and Tamatoa, at least together, he was huge enough to destroy her boat with extreme ease.

“Don’t worry about him, babe,” Tamatoa said, causing her to recoil. She hadn’t thought her worry had showed so clearly on her face, and most of all she hadn’t expected Tamatoa to pay any mind to her expression. “He’s not going to try anything with me upright and Mr. Mighty over here. I’d be more worried about the pig and the chicken if I were you. They’re not supposed to be doing that, are they?”

Moana turned to see both Heihei and Pua were hiding their head under the sand, and likely had been since first spotting Pilifeai. For Heihei, it was not unusual. For Pua… it was. With a sigh, she went to take the shaking piglet in her arms. “You really should have stayed home with mom and dad,” she sighed, letting him hide hide snout against the side of her neck.

“Yeah, about that,” Maui muttered. “I’ve kinda come to the conclusion your chicken is actually immortal, but I’m not so sure about the pig. Might be best to leave them behind with your boat a bit before we reach the Vault. There’s a small island just nearby, but far enough to be safe. We’ll pick them up on the way back.”

Moana blinked. “Wait. Why should I leave my boat there?”

“Because you don’t want to leave your anything unattended at the Vault,” Tamatoa filled her in. “They’re going to steal it from you the moment you blink. And believe me, it hurts when they steal from you,” he added before pouting. Moana kind of wished he’d stop doing that, but she did her best to give him what she hoped would come across as a sympathetic smile.

“Of course. So… who are they, anyway?”

Maui shrugged. “Monsters. Supernatural beings. Supernatural pirates. Sentients entities. A bit of this, a bit of that. The Vault is kind of a trading place for all kinds of guys.”

“All of them bigger than you, babe.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.”

“Anytime!”

“… Anyway. You think the beings who took his treasure have been or will be there to trade?”

“If they have half a brain, yes. They know Crabcake knows every piece of his collection. They wouldn’t want to be ever caught by him with the stolen goods.”

“Not unless they want to become a snack,” Tamatoa huffed, but Moana ignored him.

“Good point. So, how am I supposed to get to the Vault if I leave my boat elsewhere?”

“I’ll carry you,” Maui said, and Moana couldn’t hold back a shudder when realization sank in.

“We’re not going to fly, are we?”

Maui grinned.

***

The Vault, which Moana had imagined as an island, turned out to be something quite different. From up in the air, when she dared uncover her eyes, she could tell it had once been a volcano that must have sank into the sea long ago, forming a ring of stone not unlike the one around Te Fiti. But, in this case, there was no island in the middle: only seawater where the crater must have once been.

And, according to Maui, the Vault was right beneath the surface.

With a screech, Maui dove down towards the rocks, talons clenching harder around Moana’s arms. She had a few seconds to regret everything - most notably, not trying to swim to the place as opposed to accepting Maui’s quite literal ‘lift’ - and clench her eyes shut before Maui let out another cry and changed. The talons holding her up disappeared, but before she could scream or even open her eyes Maui’s arm was around her waist, and when the impact came it wasn’t her to take it.

“Aaand landed! It was fun, c’mon! Just admit you’re starting to love it!”

Moana opened her eyes to see the ground beneath her. Maui was back to his human form, standing on the rocks she was so sure they’d smash into only moments before, holding her under his arm.

“Put me down,” she croaked. Maui laughed, and was gracious enough to actually put her down on her feet as opposed to just dropping her. Not enough to keep himself from snickering when she leaned against a rock, legs shaking.

“You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

“I really don’t think so. I’ll swim on our way back.”

Maui opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by a sound of splashing water telling both of them that something - someone - really big was coming out. Moana looked up to see Tamatoa emerging from the water, still chewing what she supposed had to be fish. Maui crossed his arms.

“I see you found the time to have breakfast while we waited.”

Tamatoa glared back at him, but made a point not to reply until he was done chewing and swallowing. Moana was kinda grateful for that. “Don’t even start,” he finally said. “You just got here.”

“And how would you know that?”

“The human is still green in the face.”

Maui paused, and turned to look at her. He stared for a moment, then he sighed. “Point taken,” he conceded. Mini Maui marked one point for Tamatoa, something the giant crab didn’t seem to notice.

“Can you walk, babe?”

Moana did her best to smile. “I’ll be okay,” she said, leaning on the rock in a way she hoped would look casual. But at least her head wasn’t spinning too much anymore. Tamatoa didn’t bother to enquire further either way, and nodded.

“Great. So, what now? We go barging in and grab all we can? ‘Cause I’d be down for that.”

“As much as I like the idea, no,” Maui said. “We can’t just barge in and take what we can. The guys in there would definitely fight back, and your said the hairpin we’re after is fragile. I can’t risk it being turned to dust.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth as thought to say something, but paused as though a sudden thought occurred to him, and eventually shrugged. “Fine. What are we going to do then?”

“I think it would be best to be inconspicuous for now. We’ll get in there without anyone noticing us and–”

“Right, right,” Tamatoa muttered, cutting him off. “Let’s get going.”

Maui glanced at Moana. Moana glanced back at Maui. They both turned to look at Tamatoa.

“… Crabcake?”

“Yes?”

“You’re waiting for us here.”

Tamatoa blinked, clearly taken aback. “What? No way! There’s treasure in there and I’m not going to stay out! Why should I?”

“Because we need to be - wait for it - inconspicuous.”

Tamatoa blinked again.

“… We need to go unnoticed?” Maui tried again.

A scowl. “I know! I heard you the first time,” he protested, causing Maui to sigh.

“All right, Crabby. Do you think you’re inconspicuous?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth, lifting a claw, then he paused and closed his mouth again. He looked down at himself, then his eyes shifted to Moana as though looking for a suggestion. She looked back at him - all fifty feet of him - and shook her head in silence. That caused the giant crab to frown.

“Aw, c’mon! I’m not even shiny anymore!”

“You’re still… rather noticeable?” Moana dared to say, and Tamatoa seemed to lighten up.

“Oooh, right! I still have some shinies! I can taken them off and–”

Oh, for Te Fiti’s sake. “You do realize you’re a fifty feet tall giant crab, right?” she blurted out, causing his claw to pause in the air. “You’re impossible to miss, shiny or not!”

Beside her, Maui shrugged. “What she said. Plus, they’ll know it’s you. It’s not like there are others. And you’ve raided this place plenty of times in the past, haven’t you?”

“Naaaah! It’s just been… five or six… dozen… times,” Tamatoa replied, his voice getting a bit weaker with each word.

Maui raised both eyebrows. “I rest my case,” he said. On his chest, Mini Maui marked two points for him. “If you show up there, they’re going to recognize your ugly mug in a heartbeat.”

“HEY! Who are you calling ugly?”

“You. Not shiny anymore, remember? ”

“Oh. Right. I mean– Human! Tell him to stop!”

Moana groaned, a hand pressing against her forehead. “Maui. Please,” she gritted out, fervently wishing she’d brought some fermented coconut milk along.

He chuckled. “Fine, fine. Anyway, you were doing one thing right, Crabcake. Get some of that stuff off your shell and hand it over. We’re going to need it.”

Tamatoa reared back as though struck. “What? No! Why?”

“Use what little brain you’ve got! We’re supposed to pretend we’re there to trade. Can’t really do that if we show up empty-handed, can we?”

“But–!”

“We’ll bring everything back,” Moana promised. “Plus some, if we can.”

Tamatoa crossed his claws. “You must. Your promised you would help me get my treasure back, and you’ve got to deliver! If you just come back with a bunch of hairpins for me to check out, I’ll… huh.”

“You’ll huh us? So scary,” Maui scoffed. “What is it, are you taking a break to think up some original threat, or–”

“All that fog wasn’t there before, was it?”

“… Huh?”

Both Maui and Moana turned to see that… well, he was right. A fog bank was moving in towards them from the open sea; it was still quite some distance away, but the fact alone it hadn’t been visible minutes before showed just how quickly it was moving. In such an otherwise clear day, it seemed to have come out of nowhere… and the sound of drums in the distance told them precisely what was hidden in it.

“Kakamora,” Maui hissed.

“Huh,” Moana said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Tamatoa pointed out.

“But… didn’t we sort of destroy their ship? Ships? However you call that thing?”

“Don’t underestimate how quickly they can repair things. They’re resourceful little thorns in the side.”

“They must be heading to the Vault, too,” Tamatoa mused. “Which means…” he paused, and his face lit up in a grin. He looked down, and Moana realized Maui was looking up, matching it with a grin of his own. For one moment, it was as though she just got a glimpse at how things were between them a long time before.

“They’ve got to be loaded with treasure.”

“Your weight in gold that some of it is my treasure,” Tamatoa said, sounding all the world like an excited child. “Those sneaky little creeps hadn’t left Lalotai in forever and the Kakamora have a knack for finding valuables - I bet at least some of them were robbed blind as soon as they were out!”

“Yeah, if anyone could pull that off, it’s the coconut heads over there,” Maui agreed. “All right, new plan. Let’s take on them first. I’ll make them use up a few weapons.”

“Wait, wouldn’t it be best to have a real pla–”

“CHEE-HOO!”

Moana sighed, and just watched Maui’s hawk form fly towards the fog, and towards the dark outline of the huge ship - or ships, whatever she was supposed to call that trap on water. “All right then. No plan.”

To be fair, Maui didn’t seem to have any problem at first: he flew in and out of the mist, screeching, and avoiding everything - spears, darts, rounded projectiles Moana couldn’t identify - that was hurled towards him. If that kept up, the Kakamora would probably start running out of weapons really soon. “It’s working,” she sighed in relief.

“And I’m never going to hear the end of it,” Tamatoa muttered, something on his face that wasn’t too far away from a pout. He seemed about to complain some more, but he paused and squinted. “… Is the ship splitting?”

He was right: through the thick fog, Moana could see the outline of the ship beginning to split in two. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but it reminded her of a beast’s maw, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure about Maui’s brilliant idea anymore.

This is not good. They could have something up their sleeve. They must–

There was a cry, hundreds of high-pitched voices, and everything happened terribly fast.

With a screech, Maui shot upwards from the fog, up towards the sky, and he was almost, almost fast enough. For a moment, Moana allowed herself to give a sigh of relief. Then something else shot up, something that reached Maui and opened up in the blink of an eye. Moana had just an instant to realize what it was before the huge net closed on the hawk.

“NO!” she cried out, and tried to run into the sea, to get closer, but something huge and terribly strong seized her around the waist, lifting her up. Her legs kicked uselessly in the air.

“Hey, hey - what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ve got to go and help!”

“He’s fine, babe. Just look.”

Moana did, and she realized that the net hadn’t been enough to bring down Maui: he was pulling against it with all of his might, and the rope that was clearly tethering it to the ship was pulled taut, ready to snap. And it would snap, any moment now… any moment–

Something else rose from the fog, like a swarm of insects, and there was nothing Maui could do to escape them.

Darts.

Under Moana’s horrified gaze, Maui suddenly went still. He stopped pulling. The net went slack. And then, the hawk form was gone; Maui fell back into the fog, and did not come out again. Moana found herself staring numbly at the empty sky for several moments before Tamatoa spoke.

“… All right, well. Not so fine,” he said, “I’m starting to think we should have sent your chicken.”

Moana scowled, and kicked again. “Let me go! Now!”

“What, so you can go swimming to your doo–”

Moana snarled, and turned to glare into Tamatoa’s closest eye. “I. SAID. NOW.”

The giant crab winced, taken aback. “All right, all right,” he said, letting her drop in the water. Normally she’d have protested that wasn’t quite what she meant, but it wasn’t the right moment for technicalities. She stood in the water, pushing her hair off her face, and looked up at Tamatoa.

“We must go help him.”

“Do we have to?” he all but whined.

Moana gritted her teeth. “You want treasure, right? It’s right there on that ship,” she snapped. “You take it, I take Maui, and we’re all happy.”

“Sure, but can’t we wait until they, say, cut off one of his limbs or–”

“We had a deal,” Moana cut her off, then made a terrible effort not to yell and to sound as calm and disappointed as possible. “I thought you were a crab of your word.”

He reared back as though struck, and scowled. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

Moana held back the urge to scream at him that she wouldn’t need to try if he had any honor at all, and forced herself to stay calm. “Please,” she said instead. “I need your help.”

A scoff. “What happened to Miss I Restored the Heart of Te Fiti?”

“I never said I did it all on my own. I needed help - everyone needs help at some point.”

Tamatoa didn’t seem convinced. “I never needed anybody’s help,” he pointed out, a challenging note in his voice.

But you need ours to find your treasure, she thought, knowing better than saying it aloud. “Maui put you back upright instead of leaving your helpless, didn’t he?” she said instead.

Tamatoa lifted a claw and opened his mouth. Moana raised an eyebrow. Tamatoa closed his mouth and lowered his claw, snapping it shut. “… I guess,” he conceded, looking away. Moana hesitated for a moment, then she stepped forward and placed a hand on his claw.

“Look. Let’s just go get Maui back. You can keep whatever treasure we find there, and we’ll call it even. Also,” she added lightly, “you’ll get to remind him of this every time you want.”

Tamatoa’s eyestalks shifted back towards her. “That is a good point.”

“Imagine that - getting to remind him that you just saved his life,” Moana pressed on. “And of course I’ll be right there to point out how amazing you looked like while doing it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t really think I’m amazing. I’m not even shiny anymore,” he added, the whiny quality back in his voice.

Saying that she had found him anything but amazing when he was covered in treasure as well didn’t seem like the best possible move, so she didn’t. “Well, I do think you’re–“

"If you say crabulous, I’m out of here.”

“… Right. Well, if that’s what you think I think, this is your chance to change my mind. And get some treasure. And rub this in Maui’s face for the next thousand years. What do you have to lose? Unless, of course, you’re afraid of the Kakamo–”

“Fine, fine, enough,” Tamatoa cut her off. “You had me at ‘treasure’, anyway. No need to overdo it,” he grinned, and lowered himself to the closest they could get to eye level. “You make good points, human. Have I already said I’m glad I didn’t eat you?”

“Once or twice. So, are we going?”

Tamatoa nodded, and picked her up. This time, Moana let him, and moments later he had placed her right behind the top of his head. They both turned back to the fog; it was coming closer and closer, and they could hear the cheers and drumming coming from it. Celebrating the fact they had brought down Maui, no doubt. Holding onto the base of one of Tamatoa’s antennae - he didn’t seem to even notice her grip - Moana hoped with all her heart that they hadn’t done anything irreparable to him yet.

“You got a plan, Smart One?”

“I think I do.”

“Does it involve a song?”

“… What?”

“Your plan. Do I get to sing a song? Come to think of it, you never told me if you liked–”

“Let’s… just focus on the rescue part,” she cut him off, and glanced at the water between them and the approaching ship. “So. You know that thing you do to attract fish…?”

***

That, Maui decided, was not part of the plan.

All right, so he’d had no plan to begin with - but if he had, that wouldn’t have been part of it.

“Hey! HEY! That’s mine! Put that down! Put it–” he trailed off with a groan when the obvious happened: the bunch of Kakamora who had been trying to work together to lift his fishhook lost their balance and fell crashing down on the deck. Still wrapped in the net, unable to move thanks to however many darts they had managed to stick in him, Maui rolled his eyes.

“Just give up. It won’t work for any of you. Give it back, and I might be merciful - hey! HEY! You get off me!” he protested when a couple of Kakamora began bouncing on his stomach, causing Mini Maui to uselessly shake a fist at them. He tried to shake them off, but of course he could move nothing except for his eyes and mouth. And his tattoo, which were not very helpful at the moment.

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

“GET OFF ME!”

The bellow had the only result of making a couple of them snicker, while a couple more approached with spears. Maui glared at them.

“Okay, this is the last offer. If you want to get away from here all in one piece– ow! Hey! Stop that! Ouch!”

More laughter, and a couple more Kakamora approached to prod him with their spears, but before they could come close enough there was a cry, and they all turned away from Maui. Under his perplexed gaze, they all rushed to the opposite side of the ship to look down, chattering among themselves and entirely forgetting about him. What were they staring at?

Well, whatever it is, it’s not me. I must make my move before they turn their attention back.

Except that he couldn’t move, and that made things all the more complicated. Maui bit back a grunt as he tried with all his might to move, but his body stayed limp and unresponsive, and he could only look helplessly at his hook, lying on the floor and forgotten about. Last time he’d been on the receiving end of one of those darts, courtesy of the Ocean, he’d been paralyzed for hours; now it would probably take even longer for him to recover any mobility, and the Kakamora wouldn’t be distracted for that lon–

“They won’t be distracted for long,” someone whispered above him, and the next moment someone was getting the net off him, or trying to, some seawater dripping down on him. Of course Maui knew who it had to be before he even glanced up, but he did all the same.

“How did you get here?” he mouthed, and Moana grinned down at him.

“I had a lift,” was the reply, equally silent. She pushed the net off him and lifted an arm over her shoulders, but of course she couldn’t pull him up: he was far too heavy. Back in Lalotai he’d been able to walk with her help, but now he was a dead weight she couldn’t move. She realized it almost right away, and leaned him down. “Okay. Plan B,” she said, and looked up, towards the Kakamora. They were still looking down into the water, mesmerized, when she called out.

“Hey!”

They turned back as one, of course, and immediately lifted the spears.

“… Whatever Plan B is,” Maui found himself saying, “It would be best to get on with it no–”

Moana smiled at the Kakamora, giving no sign of having heard him. “Hello again, guys. Meet my little friend.”

Wait. Wait a sec–

The entire ship rocked as though hit by a tidal wave, and the unmistakable crack of wood breaking filled the air. The Kakamora screamed. Maui was thrown against the side of the ship, while Moana managed to maintain her balance, snatching a spear from the hands of the closest Kakamora and kicking it away in the same motion. Not a bad move and probably one Maui would have cheered in other circumstances, but at the moment he was a bit too taken by the sight of a very, very familiar claw planting itself in the middle of the deck. The next moment Tamatoa was emerging from the sea to peer onto the ship, dripping water and… wait, why did he look so perplexed?

“Human?” he called out, the frown still on his face. The flurry of activity on the deck stopped. The Kakamora stilled and stared at him. Moana stilled and stared at him. Maui stayed still - not much choice there - and stared at him.

“What is it?” Moana finally said, breaking the sudden and confused silence.

“You meant me, right?”

“Huh?”

“Your little friend? That was the signal I was supposed to attack, right? Or was I supposed to wait for another cue?”

“Er… no, this was fine.”

Maui blinked. The Kakamora kept shifting their gazes between Moana and Tamatoa, completely silent, weapons down. Tamatoa shrugged, a claw still planted into the ship and seemingly paying no attention to any of them. “Oh, good. It was just kind of confusing, talking about a little friend, and I’m not little, am I?”

“Well… no, you’re not.”

“Why did you call me little, then?”

“It’s just… can we talk about this later?” Moana asked, gesturing to the whole situation - the Kakamora, Maui’s motionless form, his fishhook on the floor - with her free hand. “Possibly when we’re done here?”

Tamatoa blinked, then seemed to perk up. “Oh! Right! The rescue thing. Hey, Maui! I’m saving your life here! Are you taking note?”

“Believe me, I’m not forgetting this moment anytime soon,” Maui said drily. As chaos exploded around him again, the Kakamora clearly not willing to just surrender their ship to a giant crab, he sighed and closed his eyes, letting his head drop. He would never let him hear the end of it, would he? Of course he wouldn’t. Come to think of it, maybe it would be for the best to just roll into the water and drow–

CRACK.

The ship rocked again, this time a lot more violently, and Maui was thrown across the deck before he felt something beneath him shatter. Moana’s cry - “Maui!” - reached him only one instant before he fell.

Oh, come on! I didn’t really mean–

The thought was cut short by the impact against water, like a violent slap, and the sensation of sinking like a stone. He tried to move out of instinct, tried to swim, but of course he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do anything except stare up at the surface, hold his breath, and sink.

***

[Back to Chapter 4]

[On to Chapter 6]

#moana #maui #tamatoa #oceania #disney

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