Chapter Text
In the three thousand years he’s been alive, Maui’s eyes have never once deceived him. Demigodhood might be a double-edged hook, but the sensory perception it grants is absolutely unparalleled. When he’s transformed as a hawk, as he is now, he can see everything below him in granular detail. All the better for choosing his next heroic act.
The point is, he’s always trusted his senses- until now. He’s gliding over the topmost mountain of Motunui, scanning the village for a familiar head of curly hair, when he sees two figures by the edge of the water.
His heart almost stops. It can’t, of course- immortality does so come in handy sometimes- but it’s a near thing. For surely that cannot be Moana with her daughter on the beach. As he watches, the child giggles as the ocean deposits a pink seashell in her hands. She’s a miniature version of the woman beside her, so alike that it’s almost as though he’s looking at an infant Moana.
He hadn’t been gone that long. Not that he counts the days between visiting Motunui or anything, but even he has some semblance of time. It can’t have been more than three years since they restored the heart of Te Fiti. He’d visited officially once as a hawk, unofficially quite a few more times as other animals, and watched Moana flourish.
Maybe being future chieftess came with a duty to marry. Or maybe, in the brief time he’d been away, she’d already fallen in love.
He ignores the tightening in his chest at that thought and swoops further down, wind ruffling his wings. Moana’s hair gleams in the sunlight and her red feathered skirt, lovely against her bronze skin, sways in the wind as she moves.
The child spots him first. “Look!” she cries, pointing up at the sky. “Big bird!”
Maui resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s a hawk, and a majestic one at that, thank you very much. Still, he does a kind of showy flip in the air for the villagers on the beach that are gradually beginning to take notice.
Moana follows her daughter’s gaze and it’s extremely satisfying to see her light up at the sight of him. “Maui!”
As always, he chooses the last possible moment to drop his transformation and lands perfectly on the beach. He straightens with a grin and slings his fishhook over his back. “Hey, Curly.”
Moana practically flings herself at him and he can’t help but laugh as he returns the hug, lifting her clean off the ground. “Hey,” he says again, softer, and she pulls back to press their foreheads together.
“It’s been three years," she says, sounding betrayed. “You couldn’t have come back as a bird? As a beetle, even?”
He’s done both, but he’s not about to admit that. He also breathes an internal sigh of relief- his estimate of time hadn’t been wrong after all. “What, you missed me?”
They’re so close that the tips of their noses are touching. He can feel her forehead scrunch as she scowls. She smells like flowers.
“I haven’t seen you properly since Te Fiti.” She pronounces it as though their adventure had happened decades ago. “Aren’t I allowed to miss my friend?”
“Missed you too, princess.”
She doesn’t even correct him, just leans back to beam at him. On his chest, Mini-Maui does an excited dance and pulls Mini-Moana into the frame.
“Hey, guys,” she says, laughing, and high fives them both. All too soon, though, she pulls her hands back, laughing nervously. “Sorry, that was weird. Was that weird?”
Without her intoxicating proximity, the world suddenly swims back into vision and he realises that a small crowd has gathered around them. He also realises that he’s had his hands on Moana’s waist for what is probably an improper amount of time.
Clearing his throat, he lets her down, removes his hands and steps back. “Uh, care to introduce me, Mo?”
He almost trips over something in his haste, and that’s when he finds that he’d dropped his hook onto the sand and he hadn’t even noticed. Gods, what is wrong with him today?
“Oh! Yeah,” Moana says, sounding as flustered as he feels. The crowd has parted to make way for a regal-looking couple. Chief and chieftess of Motunui, no doubt- and Moana’s parents.
“Everyone, this is Maui. Demigod of the wind and sea, hero to all.” She says that last bit with a sly, sidelong look at him. “We returned the heart of Te Fiti together.”
If Moana’s reaction to him when they first met is any indication, he’s clearly not anyone’s favourite on this island, and sure enough, the crowd’s murmuring only increases in volume.
Moana’s father steps forward, hand raised, and everyone falls silent. “Welcome to Motunui,” he says, in a deep rumbling voice, and to Maui’s surprise, he bows his head. “I’m Chief Tui, and on behalf of my people, I thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”
Everyone else bows except for Moana (cheeky as always, but really, it’d be weird if she started showing him respect now) and he basks in it for a moment.
“Thanks, guys,” he says, aiming for a magnanimous smile. “It’s good to be here. Haven’t been back since I pulled this island from the ocean a couple thousand years ago. Time flies, eh?”
He’s met with nervous laughter and Moana places a hand on his arm. “Don’t mind him. I’ll show him around and everyone can get back to what they were doing.”
The crowd somewhat disperses, but not without a few lingering looks at the two of them. He raises an eyebrow at her. “What, no celebratory feast for me, chieftess?”
She shoves him lightly. “Not chieftess yet, sharkhead. Did you just come for free food?”
“Well, I came to see my favourite human, actually, but you know I’d never say no to free food.”
Moana opens her mouth to reply, but they’re interrupted by her daughter grabbing onto his leg.
“Birdie!” she says gleefully, and Maui groans and picks her up.
“It’s demigod, kid. Demi. God. You got that?”
She blinks innocently up at him. She’s got Moana’s eyes, warm brown and somehow capable of conveying a hundred emotions in a single look.
“Just so you know, Simea’s probably going to be calling you birdie for a good while,” Moana jokes, and he pulls a face.
“I guess she gets her attitude from you.”
“Oh, she definitely does,” Moana’s mother says. She’s an elegant woman, with kind eyes and thick hair in a neat plait. There’s something about the way she carries herself that Moana echoes- full of determination, but in a gentler way than her daughter. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Maui.”
“Mom,” Moana says reproachfully, and Maui grins.
“And they’re all lies, I promise. I’m not actually a jerk.”
“You locked me in a cave and threw me off my own canoe!”
“You know you love me.” The toddler in his arms begins fussing and reaching for Moana, so he hands her back carefully. “Cute daughter, by the way. Who’s the lucky guy?”
Moana blinks. “What? What lucky-”
She cuts herself off as realisation dawns across her face and she bursts into laughter. “Oh my gods. Maui, Simea is my baby sister.”
“Big sis!” Simea chooses now to say, toying with Moana’s necklace.
Oh. Oh.
She looks exactly like you, he means to say. “So you’re not married?” comes out instead.
Moana looks startled by the question. “Well, no. I like my independence.”
“Right, yeah,” he says, with an awkward chuckle, and their little group stands in strained silence for a long moment. If he were anyone other than the greatest demigod alive, Maui might have wanted to sink into the ground.
“Moana, why don’t you show Maui around the island?” Tui says finally, with a look between the two of them that Maui can’t quite decipher, but doesn’t like anyway. “We’ll have a feast tonight. Would you be so kind as to attend as the guest of honour?”
“I’d like nothing more,” he says grandly. “Shall we, Mo?”
“I thought I was the one leading the tour,” she teases, but hands Simea over to her mother and takes his proffered arm. “So, what do you wanna see first?”
“Your hut,” he says immediately. “I want to see where you grew up.”
“Well, it’s nothing fancy,” she says, leading him up the beach and pushing back fronds to reveal a path into the village.
At the sight of it, Maui smiles, because it explains so much about why Moana is the way she is. Smoke curls up merrily from the roofs of thatched huts around a grassy clearing, and in the distance, he can see fields full of crops dotted across the landscape. There’s a coconut tree or a flowering bush about every five yards, and beneath them, villagers mill about carrying baskets of fruit or vegetables. All this is set against the gorgeous green backdrop of a mountain. It’s perfectly idyllic. But to a free spirit like Moana, it was probably also stifling.
He’d been tempted to come, before, when he’d visited as almost every animal under the sun. He’d come to Motunui about twenty five times in the first two years since Te Fiti, but had always stuck to watching her from the beach or high above the waves. It had felt wrong to go to her village without her knowledge. Admittedly, it had also felt wrong sneaking around at all, but he didn’t want a reputation for being clingy or anything. Demigods are supposed to joke that decades pass by in the blink of an eye. They’re most certainly not supposed to get so attached to a single mortal that they have to visit at least once a month. The third year, when he couldn’t come at all, had been hell.
In hindsight, he should definitely have known that Simea wasn’t Moana’s daughter.
“It’s cute,” he says, instead of everything he’s thinking, and Moana beams.
“Isn’t it? Before Te Fiti, I wanted nothing more than to escape. Leaving home made me realise how much I actually love it.”
He points up at the peak of the mountain. “I bet that was your hiding place, then, when you felt like escaping.”
She blinks up at him in surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Demigod, remember? I know everything.”
Case in point: he doesn’t even have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes. “You’re not omniscient.”
“But I’m close enough.” He points at the biggest fale . “And that’s your house.”
“That was an easy guess!”
He shrugs and practically pulls her down the path. “I’m still right, aren’t I?”
“You’re just as annoying as ever,” she sighs, but it sounds fond, so he’ll take it.
Her home is just as cosy as he expected, decorated with elaborate tapestries, paper lanterns and tukutuku panels. In the corner, the family’s sleeping mats are covered with thick tapa blankets.
“My grandma used to tell stories with these,” she says, running her fingers lightly over one of the tapestries- which, Maui notes with a jolt, is of him. “I grew up hearing about you.”
“Yeah, as a villain,” he retorts, only partly joking, and she smiles and places a hand on his arm. “We all know that’s not true anymore. Our newest historian is a huge fan of yours, actually.”
As he should be. Maui stares at the tapestry. He looks imposing in it, all hulking form and shark teeth bared in a wicked grin. Half-man, half-monster.
“So this is what you had in mind when we first met.”
“Well, no, what I had in mind was that you were obnoxious and kind of a pain.”
“I resent that.”
“A boat!” she cries, pitching her voice low in a horrible imitation of his. “The gods have given me a- ahh!”
He did not scream like that when he first saw her. This is blasphemy. He is part god, after all.
“You think you’re so funny,” he grouses, and she laughs and nudges him. “That’s because I am.”
She pulls him over to one of the sleeping mats and they sit down side-by-side on it. They’re pressed together from shoulder to knee- well, her shoulder reaches his bicep- and he’s not prepared for the shiver he has to suppress.
He clears his throat. “So, tell me what you’ve been up to these last three years.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Me, tell you? Haven’t you been on a thousand adventures since the last time we met?”
He shrugs. “I don’t have any new tattoos, do I?”
On cue, Mini-Maui shakes his head mournfully. Mini-Moana pats him on the back. She’s changed her little ink skirt, he realises, to match Moana’s new one.
“It’s been pretty boring,” he admits. “Fought a giant whale and a crazy bat lady who kept me locked up for most of the last year, but other than that, not much has happened.”
“If that’s your idea of boring, I don’t want to know what your idea of adventure is,” he jokes, and he turns to look at her in surprise.
“You do, Curly.”
They smile at each other for a drawn-out moment until Moana coughs and looks away. “I haven’t fought any monsters recently, but I’ve been wayfinding. We’re looking for islands to trade with. We’ve found a few, but all of them are uninhabited. Simea’s always trying to convince me to bring her along, but I make her stay safe on land. Hypocritical, I know.”
“Very,” Maui agrees, and she smacks him.
“Hey, I was fulfilling a sacred prophecy back then. This is different.”
He lies down on the mat; it’s too soft and comfortable to resist. “Whatever you say, O Chosen One.”
She lies down next to him. “And I’m formally becoming chieftess next year. Scary stuff.”
“You fought a lava monster. I think you can handle running a peaceful little village, princess.”
“Still not a princess,” she sighs. She opens her mouth to say something else but is interrupted by a yawn. “Ugh, sorry, it’s been a long day. I went wayfinding in the morning and I’d just gotten back from helping out the fishermen when you came.”
Outside, the sun is beginning to set, casting orange-gold rays across the floor. It makes Moana’s skin glow and her half-lidded eyes turn the colour of honey.
“Sleep then,” he says, and places his hand over her eyes to block out the light. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time for dinner.”
It’s a strangely domestic sentence. He’s not sure he’s ever said that to anyone before. With a light huff of laughter, she turns to curl up against him. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he says graciously, and revels in the smile that never leaves her lips as she falls asleep.