"Heads up!" Maui hoots, his hawk's call ringing with glee.

It's instinct alone, honed from years fighting side-by-side with this shellbrained demigod, that saves Moana from a sea urchin to the face. She whirls toward the sound of Maui's voice, oar clenched in white-knuckled fists, and whacks blindly. A dull thunkreverberates up through her arms as she makes solid contact, sending the tiny nuisance flying through the air. Maui chuffs at her and flicks another her way.

"I'm gonna need a couple seconds more warning!" she hollers back, frantic energy shifting her voice several octaves higher than usual.

"I'm sure you had it well in hand," Maui jokes. She can almost hearhim wink, even despite the adrenaline-soaked heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

Swallowing exasperation, Moana turns back to the crowd of tiny menaces surging their way from atop crisp seacaps, settling her oar more firmly in her palms. A couple exchange glances, then throw themselves toward her. Moana flicks the flat of her oar toward the mass, grinning as they topple into each other.

They crumble the way mist disperses from a waterfall, fanning out in a viciously pleasing pattern. Behind her, a cackle of victory means Maui's got another couple grabbed by the spines and is in the process of drop-winging them further out over the sea. Moana definitely envies her stupid demigod and his stupid inhuman dexterity - these sea urchins have been blessed with the astoundingly irritating ability to shoot their spikes through the air.

One, with particularly good aim, lodges several of its pointy spines in her ankle. Moana wastes no time dropping into a spinning crouch in retaliation and sending it and its fellows clack-clacking over the side of the boat. "Sure are a lot of these," she mutters under her breath, narrowing her eyes at them. After she and Maui had burnt - er, removed - their little nest on the island of Tumu (per its Chief's request), the urchins had decided that it was Moana's boat they wanted to colonize next. All those little urchins and an eel, actually. She can faintly see a sinuous tail glinting underneath the mob. At least it's not equipped with flying poisonous scales or something.

Maui's piercing call sounds once more. His vicious joy is infectious as he whizzes around their craft, snapping at the urchins who draw too close to Moana. As Moana shouts a war cry, donning a fearsome warrior face of her own, she is briefly gratified to see several turn tail and dive back into the frothing waters. Heh, cowards. She charges toward the side of the boat, whacking across the surface of her precious ocean, sending them skidding. Sure, the skin of her face is already red and raw from a couple spines too well-aimed for her oar to deflect, but she hides it with practiced ease.

A brief grunt from a throat several times the length of her craft pulls her out of her reverie as she aims and whacks without end. It's all the warning Moana gets before a huge wave of water nearly capsizes her craft.

With a strangled yell of frustration, Moana instinctively scrambles backward to latch onto the mast. She swings herself from the sturdy wood as she would a branch, taking advantage of her temporary ninety-degree shift as the boat rears upward. Her momentum propels her high into the air. The whole prow tips toward the sky, heaving the urchins past Moana's face as they whizz out toward the sea.

As the boat settles back on the ocean, Moana hits the top of her arc, then lands firmly on the other end. Over her head, a whole string of urchins vault through the air, squealing indignantly. The dismissed urchins trail a shower of poorly-aimed spikes in their wake. Moana flicks her oar to deflect them with practiced ease. She resists the urge to wave them goodbye and good riddance.

Whenever Maui gets bored of being a hawk, his default seafaring attack tactic is giant whale. It's a useful trick when there's someone on their boat they want off - that move had made its debut when her craft served as an unwilling host to a particularly irate Chief Laki - and Moana has to at least acknowledge it's clever, flipping their boat like a pan to propel its contents skyward. Well, the contents that aren't already in the sky, catapulting themselves off the mast.

Moana's gonna mess that move up one day and crack her head or something. Eh. Hasn't happened yet.

For a moment, both Moana and Maui stop to catch their breath. Their deck is mostly cleared of urchins, but it's stuffed with poorly-aimed spines, and they're unwilling to step too far onto the deck for fear of landing spikes in their soles.

As if on cue, a wave speeds from the ocean, dislodging the thicket of prickers those pesky urchins had lodged in their deck. Moana leaps lightly over it, mistimes it slightly because her leg is going to sleep, and lands back in a receding pool of water. She chuckles tiredly as faint squeaks of frustration accompany the stragglers from the soundly defeated nest as they swirl toward the horizon.

Out of the corner of her eye, Moana catches a flash of feather receding to skin, then feels the accompanying jolt of two huge feet landing solidly on the deck. A glance upward shows her that, true to form, Maui has decided to sun himself on the deck.

Moana leans back against the mast and begins to prise the stingers out of her feet. They're nothing too severe, she doesn't think, flexing her feet and wincing as she runs her fingers over her ankles. Just painful. And annoying. She pats her cheek briefly, and hisses as she yanks one out of the skinIt's tinged with green. Ew.

At that, Maui finally decides it's worth the effort to crack open his eyes and glance toward her. Then he startles. "Wait," he says, pulling himself to half-sitting position. "Are those spikes?"

Moana stifles a rueful laugh. Because really, truly, Maui is a fearsome warrior - there is no one she would rather have by her side on the field of battle. After nearly a decade of adventuring together, the emblem of Motunui cresting their sail as they explore the high seas, their companionship both in battle and out is ascending to the subject of legend.

But sometimes, he's hilariously oblivious. "No," she deadpans, then winces involuntarily as she yanks a particularly deep one out of her ankle.

"Moana -"

She halfheartedly throws a pricker at him, and he bats it away easily. "I'm fine, Maui."

He considers her for a moment, then shrugs his huge shoulders. "Long as you don't become a stinger yourself, Curly. Can't have you getting too much more irritating than you already are."

Both Mini-Moana and her larger incarnation roll their eyes at Maui in eerie unison. At first, it was kinda weird to realize that this small version of herself was incarnate and could actually communicate, albeit nonverbally. But now, it's nothing more than mundane. And very useful for winning arguments. Strange what becomes normal when your best friend is a demigod.

Maui pouts. Actual, full-on demigod pouting, complete with a stuck-out lip and everything. Moana ignores him quite pointedly and tilts her head backward, stifling a huge yawn. Suddenly, she's exhausted. And her head hurts. Absently, she itches at her ankle, glancing down to see if seaweed's twined around it, but there's nothing there. Huh.

The mast creaks as Maui shifts his weight against it. "You look tired, Curly."

"That's something we mortals get. Sleepy. Comes with age." She rolls her head to grin tiredly at him. "It's a deadly affliction."

"Don't."

His voice is sharp, and Moana winces. "Sorry." Maui hates when she brings up her mortality. Honestly, Moana doesn't quite understand it - it's not like she's the first mortal he's met. He knew her ancestors, from Fa'atonuga the Ruthless to Nofo the Reserved. He'd never mentioned themdying.

"Anyway," she continues, changing the subject with all the subtlety of an oar to the gut, "I gotta get more people in on helping me around Motunui."

Maui scoffs, untensing against the mast now that the pressing matter of mortality has been dropped. "Uh-huh. Who would want to be Chief?"

"It's not a one-woman job! Some Chiefs have had Advisors. Y'know, the people that sit next to them and tell them when they're being stupid."

"That's Arihi."

Moana flaps a hand to dismiss the notion. "Kinda. She's more a keep-track-of-details sort rather than a tell-me-when-I'm-being-dumb sort. Not for lack of trying! But she's a bit lacking when it comes to, uh, reassurances. Plus, she's got her hands full training La'ei."

"Hey, no badmouthing La'ei. She's wonderful."

"Yeah, because she coos at all your stories. And how could I forget? Whenever you drop from the skies," she shakes her head impishly, holding her arms out wide - well, as wide as they can go with her shoulder sore - "she comes running, hollering 'Tell me a story, Uncle Maui! Uncle Maui!' Oh man, you squeal like a teenager every time."

Maui valiantly pretends his face isn't turning red, like he'd spent too long out in the sun. "Yeah, yeah, well. It's nice to get some validation from children every once in a while," he sniffs. "Adults are so finicky."

Moana snorts ruefully at that. Though she's well an adult herself, she can't help but agree. Some of her favorite parts of being Chief involve the young ones on Motunui - teaching the children their stories, their dances, their songs.

Now that the hive of those beelike urchins is gone, the surface of the ocean is placid. In the distance, the waves roll up against the island of Tumu, sliding gently over the white shores. From here, Moana can see the faint roll of smoke that suggests the forge of Tumu is going, even this early in the morning.

"Set sail?" she suggests wearily.

"You're the Chief here, O Expert Wayfinder. More than capable of setting your own sails."

"Yeah, and I just scrubbed the deck."

"That was the ocean, Fishfeet."

"Same thing. Now get."

He scowls at her for a couple of moments, just for good measure. Moana plasters her best cheeky grin on her face, and when Maui rolls his eyes she knows she's won.

Maui hefts himself to his feet, yanking on the halyard. Their little boat swivels to the right dramatically, causing the world around Moana to lurch disconcertingly. She shuts her eyes against the sudden appearance of the sun as it abruptly bathes everything to the right of the emblazoned sail with brilliant light.

Next stop, windward side of Tumu. Moana suppresses a groan. She's gotta let Fuefue know they've cleared her island of those bee-urchins before they return to the comfort of Motunui. And... well, close though she is to Chief Fuefue, she's doesn't really want to be playing diplomat right now. Mostly, she wants to sleep. But duty calls, as it does so often - though right now, it feels more like duty's hollering over the painful pounding in her head - so Moana closes her eyes and leans against the mast and yells at Maui to set sails for Tumu's port.

She tries to, anyway. It's a no go. Her throat is too dry. Idly, Moana wonders if she swallowed seawater or something during their fight, because her voice sticks in her throat like she'd coated it with sand. Disgusting. As the boat lurches again, her stomach goes with it, and chewing out Maui for terrible sailing is almost adequate motivation to stand up. Almost.

Her eyes drop closed in a blink, and wow, she doesn't want to open them again. Maui probably knows where to go, he won't mind if she takes a nap, right? She won't be asleep for more than twenty minutes, tops. And it's so comfortable, with the light off the sea warming her skin, the lulling rhythm of the waves rocking her to sleep...

No. Wayfinders never sleep, so neither will she. Though she's not navigating, she is the Chief of Motunui, and she will sleep when her work is done.

From a long way away, Moana can hear Maui's voice. But it's distant and muffled, so he's probably atop the mast again. She didn't hear him climb, though, which is weird - his feet are huge, and she should've felt him pounding on up the wood. Eh, he probably turned bird to get up. Briefly, Moana debates just trying to yell for him to change course again, going so far as to tip her head backward, before deciding it's a lost cause.

Dehydration tugs at her throat, and with a self-pitying groan - one that she never gives in the company of anyone except Sina, Tui, Arihi, and the trickster demigod causing her precious boat to sway precariously on a perfectly calm surf- she hefts herself to her feet toward their little storage compartment. Her hands rummage around to find their water sacks, and she drinks greedily.

Somehow, her throat gets drier. She frowns unsteadily at the sack in her hands, fingers uncomfortably numb against the dried material, and squints into the mouth-opening. She closes the wrong eye and spends several seconds puzzling over why she's staring at the deck instead of the water inside.

No, that's definitely water sloshing around in there. Maybe it's seawater or something, she thinks, and holds it up to her ear to see if it sounds any different.

Then she jumps when something touches her shoulder.

She looks up, and realizes with a jolt that the world is spinning. Moana blinks a couple of times, trying to get the mast to stop vibrating painfully, before focusing on Maui.

Confused, Moana turns a slow gaze toward the mast and finds that no, Maui's not up there, doing handstands on its shaved top. He actually is right in front of her, she just hadn't seen him come down. Huh.

His lips are moving, she realizes abruptly. She can't hear anything, though. Like someone had taken all the air out of their boat and drained it dry. Her entire head feels like it's full of sea urchins performing a haka. She opens her mouth to ask him to set course for Tumu, but the movement makes the uncomfortable tingling on her tongue spread up to her mouth, climbing up her back like malicious ivy.

Maui lays his hand on her shoulder. She tries to follow the movement, but it jolts through her body and her entire vision blots abruptly with black, dragging Moana to sleep.

Maui should've realized something was wrong when a third pun fails to grab Moana's attention. He's just finished knotting the halyard in place, glancing up at the sun to ensure their little boat is speeding along toward Tumu's port, when he cracks another excellent joke that fails to garner any attention.

Moana doesn't respond. Figuring she's just licking her wounds, Maui tromps on over toward the bind to make sure none of those nasty urchins got their quills through the tough rope.

Everything looks, heh, shipshape. The tight-stretched ropes look decently unblemished and unfrayed. He sets about plucking miscellaneous darts out of the wood of the deck that the ocean's sweeping wave had missed, devoutly grateful his hawk-dexterity and shark-skin prevented him from having one of those embedded in his legs.

Thankfully there aren't too many left. Much as he and the ocean bump heads every once in a while - well, as much as body of water can have a head - it did a fair job careening the nasty little prickers overboard.

He tosses his handful to the waves with a look of distaste. Chief Fuefue should be plenty happy to know that her island is free of those scoundrels. Good riddance.

Brushing his hands against his chest, he turns to find Moana lurching unsteadily toward the trapdoor that holds their supplies. "Hey," he calls after her, brows knitting as he takes in her uneven gait. "You sure you should be walkin', Curly? Doesn't look like those stingers've healed just yet."

She doesn't appear to hear him. In fact, she doesn't react to him at all, just holds their water-skin to her ear.

Maui blinks at her. On his shoulder, Mini-Maui leaps upward, then reaches down to heave Mini-Moana off her canoe to join him. "Hey," Maui tries again, crouching next to her. He's not a subtle guy, big-chested and even bigger-footed, but the thumps of his feet against the deck don't get a reaction from her at all. "Moana?" he asks, brushing a hand against her shoulder.

Her eyes, unfocused and vacant, flicker toward him. They focus on him, very briefly, before rolling back into her head.

Ice devours the pit of his stomach. He catches her just before the back of her head hits the deck. The water skin plummets, spilling water overboard. For a brief moment, the ocean recedes, trying to keep the freshwater pure and untainted, before giving up the battle.

"Moana?" Maui half-yelps, pressing a gentle thumb to her eyelid and pulling it upward. No good - she's well and truly unconscious. "Moana, wake up," Maui tries again, shaking her shoulders vigorously. But she stays limp in his hands.

She's probably just napping. Yeah, that's gotta be it. She had looked pretty tired, leaning against the mast.

And he'd believe it, too, if his mind hadn't picked that moment to send a memory leaping his way. At the time, he'd discarded it as a trick of the light among all those glinting quills, but... come to think of it, there was an eel in those urchin-infested waters.

Eels can't survive in the climate of Tumu.

With a horrible suspicion niggling at the back of his mind, Maui sets Moana gently on the deck and cradles her head in his arms. Around the small puncture wound gracing her cheek, the skin is turning an unhealthy shade of green before his eyes.

Poison.

His gaze flickers toward the horizon, toward Motunui, hands clenching subconsciously around Moana's hair. Sea urchins aren't poisonous. Unless this breed grew unchecked on Tumu, became something different during his thousand-year hiatus, there's no way for the poison in Moana to be theirs. And the eel that swam with them - it is too cool for moray eels, this far north of Motunui. It couldn't be here, yet Maui had the vision of a hawk as he flew, and he was not mistaken.

Maui's heart drops as a second realization hits him, and dread spikes in his throat. If the eel was not a normal eel, then...

Inadvertently, his gaze drops downward. Down, down past the sea, through the waves toward the bottom of the ocean, through the rock, past even Lalotai, down toward...

No.He won't even think it. Moana will be fine. He'll bring her to Motunui, and her people will know what to do. Surely they have some sort of cure for ciguatera poisoning.

He can't afford to spend time worrying. Maui whips a rope from the small compartment. Once he's secured Moana's wrist to the mast - the shortest route from Tumu to Motunui passes near Lalotai, and frankly, Maui wouldn't put it past one of those infernal creatures to take a chance trying to capsize them - and arranged her as comfortably as he can manage, he sets sail for Motunui.

The wind and the sea respond easily to his command. Beneath his feet, the ocean pauses to burble concern, glancing over the deck toward Moana, before grabbing the end of their craft and shoving.

Maui sets his jaw grimly. With the sail against one palm and their oar in the other, he crouches low against the deck.

All right, and so we begin!

A couple of notes, for reference. First, in this 'verse, Moana has ruled Motunui for ten years now. She has a sister, Arihi, who is several years younger than Moana herself. Arihi has a kid, La'ei, who's about seven at this time. As Moana herself has no children, nor a husband. Moana and Arihi are well-occupied training La'ei to rule Motunui. Additionally, by this time, Moana in her voyages has found several other peoples. With some, she gets along well, like Chief Fuefue of Tumu; and with some, like Chief Laki of Hehena, she does not.

Overall, this story is gonna be pretty mythology-heavy! I love mythology, and honestly researching little tidbits and headcanons to incorporate into a couple of the characters was some of the most fun I've had writing in a little while.

Thanks for reading! Want to chat? Drop by inkedinserendipity on tumblr!

Glossary:

Laki - Samoan name meaning lucky. In this 'verse, the Chief of Hehena. He's pretty arrogant and not well-liked on Motunui. One of those leaders that favors appearance over actual performance.

Tumu - in this 'verse, the island ruled by Chief Fuefue. A close ally and trading partner to Motunui.

Fuefue - the Samoan word for a beach morning-glory, a light pink flower common on beaches. In this 'verse, the young Chief of Tumu. Over time, Moana and Fuefue have grown to be friends as well as leaders of allied villages.

Lalotai - the realm of monsters as seen in the film.

Haka- a Maori battle cry used to intimidate enemies. Can also be used during special occasions - to greet a guest, to mark a funeral, etc. In the movie, Maui performed a hakaat least twice: once when opening the entrance to Lalotai, and the second to save Moana from Te Ka after his hook broke.

Arihi - Pacific Island name meaning noble. In this 'verse, the younger sister of Moana, who helps Moana rule Motunui by taking care of the details that Moana is sometimes too hotheaded and determined to consider carefully before deciding.

Fa'atonuga - in this 'verse, one of Moana's ancestors. Regarded as a ruthless ruler in wartime. Upholder of justice. A favorite of Tilafaiga, had a soft-spot for Maui. They fought alongside each other for some time before she passed.

Nofo - in this 'verse, the Chief during the theft of the Heart. It was he who, driven by his duty to his people, split up the warring factions that were created under the reign of Fa'atonuga's parents and sent them to safety on separate islands.