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wannabeadisneyprincess · 22 days ago

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we're wasting time (pretending we're strong)

"Well...what are we gonna do?" Moana tilts her head at Maui when he meets her gaze. "Two of the most powerful demigods in all the seas..." she pauses, and pouts dramatically in an attempt to lighten the mood. "...and here we are, both struggling with nightmares."

Notes:

So, fun fact! In the novelization, Maui regains consciousness a bit earlier than he does in the movie. When he dives under the water to help/stop Moana, he actually witnesses the whole process of her reaching the surface of Motufetū, gently placing a hand on it, and then brutally dying to a lightning strike to her spine. There's a whole fun descriptive about him crying out to her as he swims desperately to catch her :')

Another fun fact! At some point before Maui gets struck by lightning, Moana tries to protect him by blowing into her conch shell to taunt the storm to come and attack her instead. They're so protective of each other it drives me up the wall ;~;

(Reblogs are encouraged and appreciated, but if you tag as a ship I'm blocking you and eating your kneecaps)

AO3

As brave and fearless as Moana’s people and the stories they tell of her claim her to be, she is still no stranger to nightmares.

She’s very familiar with the heartache and the intense anxiety that leaves her breathless as she shoots awake in the middle of the night, terrified by things that are not and never were there at all.

They’re not frequent, per say, but the intensity of which they occur are always enough to leave her trembling.

Tonight, she fears, in her last few moments of consciousness, is no different.

This time, she stands alone on a canoe, clinging desperately to the mast as a powerful storm rages around her. Each roll of thunder is louder than the previous, and each ocean wave that the storm sends barreling towards her comes closer and closer to capsizing her and sending her under the waves. She realizes, far too late, that the canoe she stands upon is much too small to handle these kinds of waves, and when she finds a moment of balance to look towards the sail, her heart catches in her throat.

Its sail is emblazoned with the spiral of Te Fiti.

But that’s impossible, because she never takes this canoe out on such long or dangerous journeys for the sake of nostalgia, of longing to preserve what it means to her for as long as she can.

She doesn’t like taking this canoe out all on her own, because it sends waves of loneliness through her, a painful reminder of the three years she’s gone without seeing-

A huge bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, interrupting her train of thought and alerting her to the sound of…bird wings? She looks to the sky, and a strained gasp escapes her.

There’s Maui, making rapid flashes back and forth between his hawk form and his regular demigod form. He’s grasping desperately to the rope attached to his hook, trying his hardest to pull something out of the water, but no matter how hard he tries, whatever it is isn’t budging. Even from the deck of the canoe Moana can tell that he’s distracted, because he keeps casting glances downward at something else in the water. Frowning, she tries to follow his gaze, and an uneasy chill runs down her spine when she realizes he keeps staring at the sail of her canoe.

He’s still trying to pull Motufetū out of the water for her.

“Maui!” she shouts upward to him, the fear in her chest causing her voice to shake. “Come back! It’s too dangerous! We can regroup!”

He somehow finds the time to shake his head in protest. “I can’t!” he shouts back, his voice straining with the effort. “I’ve got it!” he tries, clearly trying to assure her. “I have to,” he adds, eyes fixed on the symbol of her canoe’s sail. “I promised.”

She shakes her head, and unsticks herself from the mast as she grabs for the oar. “At least let me-”

Another bolt of lightning strikes, this time at the water in the space between her canoe and where Maui hovers. Okay, okay, so she’s gonna need to find a much subtler way to help. Maui, also having seen, growls towards the sky the same way he’d taught her years before in Lalotai, and there’s another rapid succession of transformations as he continues on, ignoring Nalo’s warning.

Before Moana has any time to redirect her attention to coming up with a plan to help, the wind picks up noisily, as if it were screaming curses at the both of them, and a startled yelp escapes her as the next bolt of lightning hits the mast of her canoe. She barely has enough time to make sure it hasn’t caught fire from the impact (it hasn’t, thank the gods,) before Maui shouts even louder over the storm.

“I thought I told you to leave her out of it!” he screams upward, as if he’s trying to talk to Nalo directly. Maui shakes his head violently, and doubles down on his efforts. He’s transforming so rapidly that Moana has to squint to see through all of the flashing, and for a brief moment it looks as if he really is going to pull the island out of the water.

But then there’s the undeniable sound of screeching, and this time the lightning slams into Maui directly. Moana tries to scream out, but no sound leaves her mouth. It’s not long before the powerful winds of the storms sends the scent of burning hair and flesh in her direction, and she chokes back a gag as she throws caution to the wind and dives for her oar to direct the canoe to be able to catch him in case he falls.

“Stay back, Moana!” he manages to wheeze through his efforts to recover, and it makes her chest ache just how much the fear in his voice sounds directed towards her safety, rather than his own.

It breaks her heart, but she knows neither of them can afford any distractions, so she backs away from the oar and clasps at her necklace as she nods a silent promise to him. He nods back, the tiniest hints of gratitude on his face, before he’s right back to his island-raising efforts.

Nalo, angry at his failed attempt to knock Maui down, strikes him again, harder this time, and Moana feels sick to her stomach at the way Maui falters. It takes everything in her not to do anything to help, her knuckles turning white as she grips at her skirt in an attempt to stop herself from diving straight into the water after Motufetū to end all of this trouble herself. She can do nothing but watch, and that scares her more than anything.

The lightning stops flashing, and all at once she wants to retract that train of thought.

She locks eyes with Maui, by chance, and it’s actually the devastated, hopeless look in his eyes that scares her more than anything. He tries to hide it behind a lopsided smile, but it helps nothing when it’s accompanied by the fact that he mouths the words I’m sorry as he finally gives up on fighting. He lets go of the rope, his hook sinking to the ocean floor alongside Motufetū, and before he even has the chance to drop into the water, Nalo strikes one last time, harder and faster than all the other times put together.

“Maui!” Moana shrieks, her voice raw and cracking with emotion. She rushes forward to dive into the water after him as he falls, but something grabs her foot and slams her into the deck of her canoe, stopping her. She kicks and thrashes, in case it’s a monster that Nalo sent after her, but her heart breaks in her chest when she turns her head and sees it’s the ocean refusing to let her go.

“No!” she cries, and no matter how hard she attempts to kick her way out of the ocean’s grip, it refuses to let go. “Let me go! I need to help him!”

Nothing. No response at all.

High above her, he falls, limp and unmoving.

“Maui!” she screams again, and squeezes her eyes shut, not sure she’ll ever be prepared for the harsh sound of him hitting the water.

She waits, and she waits, but the sound never comes.

When Moana opens her eyes again, she’s staring upwards at the ceiling of her fale. The gentle chirp of crickets and the moonlight poking through her window are her clues that it’s still the middle of the night. She sits up, taking a deep breath to try and calm the shake in her shoulders, and her eyes fall to the oar tucked into the corner by the doorway.

She sighs.

It’s not the first time she’s had a nightmare about Maui.

Three years ago, she dreamt of Te Kā. She dreamt of discovering the spiral on her chest too late, of Maui giving all he had to spare her some time, and her losing everything as a result. She dreamt of Lalotai, of Tamatoa seeing right through her tricks. He’d crushed the algae-covered pebble in his pincers, and decided that the best punishment for keeping Te Fiti’s heart away from him was to kill Maui first, just to make her watch. Something about making her suffer before taking her life, just for the dramatics of it all.

She dreamt of drowning. Of diving into the water to save something, someone, and not being able to reach out and help them no matter how hard or how far she kicked.

Those times, she’d only assumed it was because she was missing him.

Those times, she could find comfort in knowing there was no truth to them.

Moana shivers as she stands to her feet, and grabs her oar on her way out the door. She’s not really planning on going anywhere where she’d need it, but the feeling of the carved wood in her callused hands always brings her comfort. She drags it along the sand as she heads to the beach, and gently places it beside her as she sits down.

The ocean’s always been there for her. It’s always been there to listen, even if she knows it can’t respond. The sound of its gentle waves always brought her solace in ways the company of others could not. The ocean could not judge, or try to sway her emotions one way or another. It’s her first and longest friend, always there, even when others she cares for cannot be there.

As if it were hearing her thoughts, it pokes its head out of the water and gently wraps itself around her ankle, as if it were attempting to hug her.

“Thanks,” she smiles, wiping at her eyes with her wrist. She hadn’t even realized that she was crying.

It’s embarrassing, really. She knows she’s got nothing to worry about! Maui’s all all-powerful demigod. The last thing he needs is someone like her worrying about him all the time. He’s strong and resourceful and he’s probably gone through much worse than one lightning storm and came out stronger than ever. He’s challenged gods before and she knows that he’ll probably challenge dozens more in the future.

He doesn’t need someone like her. He can take care of himself.

And yet…

She closes her eyes, and flinches when the images from her nightmare come rushing back to her.

…She wants to protect him. She wants to do everything she can to keep him safe.

How ridiculous is she?

The sound of approaching footsteps snaps her from her thoughts. She recognizes the source of them without even turning her head. The ocean, seemingly recognizing them as well, slowly retracts itself back into the sea to give them space.

She smiles. “You know, for a demigod who stole fire from the underworld,” she teases him with an embellishment she only could’ve picked up from him, “you’re pretty awful at sneaking around.”

Maui laughs as he sits down beside her. “So are you, Curly” he teases back easily. “I could see you bounding down to the water from halfway across the island. Don’t you think it’s a little late to take off exploring?” he says, and then flashes her with a fake pout so sad and blubbery that it nearly rivals Simea’s. “…without me?”

Moana bites down on a laugh that would surely wake up half the village, and slugs him on the shoulder.

Ever since everything that went down at Motufetū, he’s become a comfortable regular in her everyday life. She’d been prepared to say goodbye again once she and her crew were ready to sail back home to Motunui, but he’d told her there on the shore that he was finally gonna make good on an old promise and come back with her. Even then, she was certain he was just being sentimental, and that he was gonna take off and take care of other more important demigodly things after a number of days, but as more and more weeks went by, it became clearer and clearer to her that he had no plans of leaving any time soon.

Soon after, the village of Motunui seemed to follow. It took time, but he eventually started to be seen as less of the all-powerful Demigod of the Wind and Sea and more as just one of their own. He was given his own honorary fale, invited to feasts and ceremonies across the island, and eventually just invited to participate in the island’s day-to-day regular.

Moana smiles to herself at the thought, and inches closer to him in the sand. “It’s not like that, I promise” she says, giving him a pat on the arm full of mock sympathy. She then brings her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around herself in a self-hug. “I, uh…” she starts, “I had a nightmare.”

“...Oh,” Maui responds quietly, all of the playful bite in his voice fading out to sea. Something gentle takes its place as he tries to find his words. “Do you, uh…want to talk about it? What was it about?”

Moana doesn’t respond right away. She tries to direct her gaze elsewhere to try and gather her thoughts and find a way to explain it gently, but it’s just her luck, because she somehow ends up locking eyes with Mini Maui. The little tattoo tilts his head at her, pacing back and forth and tapping at his chin like he’s trying to put the pieces together himself, but then he stops in his tracks and frowns sympathetically as he seems to realize something. He gestures upwards at Maui with his thumb, a little question mark popping up over his head.

Him?

She nods, and he grimaces.

Moana tries to look somewhere else, like down at the water or up at the stars or at the leaves of the coconut trees swaying in the gentle breeze a little ways down the shore, but she’s got this burning feeling that someone is staring at her, so she sucks in some air through her teeth and looks back to Maui, because she owes him that much.

He’s staring at her, eyes wide in shock. “Me?”

“I know, I know,” she tries to wave off that look on his face with a wave of her hands, but it still doesn’t do much to help how dumb and awkward she feels. “It’s stupid.” She rests her chin on her knees, pulling her eyes away from his burning gaze. “We were at Motufetū again. Well, not everyone. Just us. You and I.” She runs her hand along the wood of her oar to give herself something else to focus on. “And we were on my old canoe, right? The one we took to Te Fiti? So it wasn’t built for Nalo’s storms, because it’s so small, and we…well, actually just me, I was the only one on the boat, kept almost capsizing. I look up, because, you know, I don’t remember how I got there, and I see you, and…you’re still trying to pull the island out of the water.”

She shakes her head. She can’t have the tears coming back to her eyes, not now. “...and I kept trying to shout out to you and tell you that it was okay if you couldn’t, and that we should try and regroup and come up with some other plan where we’d both be safe, because whatever you were doing wasn’t working. But, uh, you kept shouting back at me that you didn’t want to, something about old promises, and you wouldn’t let me help you no matter how angry Nalo got at you. I kept trying to help anyway, but then the ocean started stopping me too, so all I could do was sit back and watch. You just…wouldn’t stand down, no matter how much I begged you to come back, and…” she trails off, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “I had to watch Nalo tear into you all over again.”

She squeezes herself again, hoping the self-hug will be enough to stop the trembling from returning to her body. “It’s stupid,” she keeps on, before he can intervene, “because I know it’s just a dream, and it’s stupid, because we both know you don’t need anyone looking out for you. You’re a demigod, you don’t need saving, you don’t need protecting, and yet every time that image repeats itself in my head, I get all of these thoughts that are like, I should’ve done better, I should’ve done something to prevent this from happening. It’s like…why do I want to protect someone that doesn’t need it? What could I possibly do to keep you safe and prevent that sort of thing from happening that you couldn’t already do yourself?”

She scrubs her hands down her face. She’s just rambling at this point, she’s sure of it. “I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I’m probably not making any sense. It’s such a specific problem to have, wanting to protect someone you know doesn’t need it in the first place.” She tries to laugh at herself, but it comes out sounding a lot sadder than she intends for it to.

Silence.

She figured that’d be the response.

She uncurls from around herself, and leans over to rest her head on Maui’s shoulder. Even though he’s really awful at the whole comforting words thing, she is happy he’s so willing to listen to her babble on, at least. She means to convey that sentiment, she really does, but a little flash of movement out of the corner of her eyes distracts her before she can.

She looks, and sees Mini Maui’s running over to Maui’s arm, right near where her hair is squished against it, and starts patting the space, as if he were trying to give her a comforting pat on the head despite being little more than a little tattoo.

That gets a genuine laugh out of her. “Thanks, little buddy. At least I know you’re trying,” she teases in an attempt to get a rise out of Maui, but then the little tattoo is shaking his head. He waves his arms in the air to keep her attention, and dashes off to another part of Maui’s chest. She follows him with her gaze, and blinks in surprise when he runs to Maui’s tattoo of her. He sits down on the deck of the little inked canoe, and even more surprising, Mini Moana lowers her arm from its usual frozen position and sits down beside him. She winds an arm around him as she looks up at her large counterpoint, her little inky eyes looking oh so sad.

They’re both trying to tell her something that Maui isn’t.

“Maui, what are you trying to…” she tries, but her voice fades off when she turns to meet his gaze.

He’s staring at her with this distant, far-off look, almost as if he’s not really looking at her at all, something akin to grief in his eyes. If she looks closer, she realizes he’s not even looking at her face, but instead at…her arm?

…Her tattoo of Motufetū.

Every time she tries to remember what happened that day, she gets a splitting headache and the ghost of burning pain running down her spine. She remembers what happened to Maui, of course, but there’s nothing but static when she tries to remember what happened to her. She remembers diving into the water, the sound of thunder and lightning crashing around her, the sensation of her fingers brushing against Motufetū, and then…nothing.

The next thing she remembers after that is waking up…on the ocean floor? No, somewhere else, because the ocean wasn’t suffocating her, it was creating a protective dome around her. She remembers realizing, with a start, that Maui was holding her in his arms, and that there was a whole world of emotions on his face as he helped her to her feet.

Grief. Disbelief. Uncertainty. Euphoria.

She remembers the crushing hug that nearly knocked the wind out of her that he’d given her sometime later, when there was time for it. She remembers the voyage home, where she found herself repeatedly poking at her tattoo, wondering in the back of her mind if she’d ever earn one symbolizing what she did for Te Fiti. She remembers the first time she traced her fingers along the new patterns on her oar, making a mental note to see if they matched the symbols on Maui’s hook or if these patterns were uniquely her own.

She remembers having the smallest inkling of what had to happen for her to deserve everything that came after, but never finding the time to ask, always too afraid to bring up such a touchy subject.

…Oh.

Does he have nightmares about what happened to her?

She shifts herself in the sand so she can meet his eyes better. “Maui?” she whispers, hesitant to reach out and touch him out of fear that he’ll shatter to pieces.

He snaps himself from his trance. “Sorry,” he replies haphazardly, and it’s so uncharacteristic of him that it makes Moana wince. He shifts in the sand before Moana has a chance to say anything. “Look…” he starts, fumbling over his words before they’re even out of his mouth. “I get it. I know you don’t really need the protection either. I’ve seen what you’re capable of! You’re certainly much stronger and more resourceful than any other human I’ve met.” He shakes his head. “You’re actually probably even more than I give you credit for, given that the gods, you know…” his voice drops, “...saw you as someone worthy of being saved. Means that even they see something in you that’s strong and powerful and nothing to sneeze at. The gods have faith in you. They know you’re perfectly well and capable of seizing anything you set your heart on. I know firsthand that you’re capable of seizing anything you set your heart on!”

He shifts uncomfortably, his eyes starting to go cloudy again. “But…after everything, you know, watching you go limp on the surface of Motufetū…” he pauses, taking a deep breath to try and gather his composure. “My mind can’t help but wander, and…” his gaze turns to her. “It’s hard not to see you as someone I want to keep safe.” He laughs self-deprecatingly at himself, as if it were a ridiculous thought to be having at all. “You’re just as much of a demigod now as I am, Curly. You deserve more credit than that.”

Moana’s chest aches. It means the world to her that he understands, and that he’s trying to bring her comfort, but it breaks her heart to know they’re both struggling with this. She hadn’t even considered for one moment that he had watched her die, but she realizes with a grimace that it’s exactly the sort of thing Nalo would’ve forced him to do for trying to break his millennia-long curse.

She’s not sure what to say. She’s not sure what she could say.

…But maybe, she realizes, she doesn’t even really need to say anything at all. If she feels immense comfort just knowing that he’s there for her, even without the proper words for it…

Moana inches to Maui’s side and silently winds an arm around his back. She can’t reach all the way across, not even close, but even she doesn’t miss the way that her fingers brush gently against the tattoo of his mother, the age-old reminder of how long he’s been forced to feel abandoned and alone. Moana can do nothing now but hope that he understands her silent promise.

He does, instantly, and the exhale that escapes him is deep and shuddered. Wordlessly, he returns the gesture, winding an arm around her shoulders and gently pulling her closer to his side.

For a few moments, neither of them speak. Moana closes her eyes, allowing her to focus on the gentle sounds of the ocean and the chirp of crickets. She focuses on the feeling of the cool, soft sand beneath her feet. She focuses on the warmth of her home island’s air and Maui’s arm around her. She focuses on these little reminders that she’s still alive, and she exhales.

A few more moments pass before she opens her eyes. “Well…what are we gonna do?” She tilts her head at Maui when he meets her gaze again. “Two of the most powerful demigods in all the seas,” she pauses, pouting dramatically, “and here we are, struggling with nightmares.”

Maui laughs at that, genuinely. It’s boisterous and familiar and more comforting than Moana’s willing to admit.

“Time heals all, O Chosen One” he replies, waggling his head from side to side as if he were poking fun at the stiff formality of the gods he grew up with. “But…” his gaze softens and his voice drops to little more than a murmur, “It does help wonders knowing you’re not alone.”

The true weight of those words are not lost on Moana. She throws herself at him in a hug, and he laughs again as he catches her without a moment’s falter or hesitation, almost as if it were a practiced motion. She grins unabashedly at that thought as she buries her face into his shoulder.

“You’re right,” she says, voice muffled, and she gives him one more good squeeze before she lets him go and drops back down into the sand. She leans her head against his arm, and turns her gaze out towards the horizon. “It does help wonders.”

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