The Heart of Tangaroa✔️

Chapter 12: Storytelling

•"Silly little Demigoddess, so naive are you, so foolish,"

Moana sat up from her restless sleep, feeling the waves angrily jostle her back and forth as a beautiful woman with fire red hair rose from the boiling sea. But her face wasn't quite right. It was clenched in permanent anguish, like a knife was being consistently plunged into her heart, "stand up and face me girl!"

"Who are you!" Moana cried, only to stumble into the mast the minute she got to her feet, "what have you done with Maui?"

"Maui? Ha! That little cockroach isn't foolish enough to enter my lair, not after what he did. He'll abandoned you, child. Just like he did me,"

"Maui wouldn't abandon me," Moana spat, wobbling where she stood as the fiery woman laughed deeply and lifted the canoe up in her red glowing hand,

"Wouldn't he though? Silly girl, he's nothing but a coward and a thief. Pfft, love. He doesn't know a single thing about it,"

"Is that because he didn't love you?" Moana asked, holding onto the mast of her canoe tightly as her dark curls whipped around her face, "you're Roha, aren't you? Goddess of the underworld?"

"Foolish! Insolent little snip!" The woman raged, "you don't know anything about love. No more then he does! Leaving your people to suffer, while you and he sail across the world without a care. So tell me, Moana, what do you know of love?"

Moana wanted to come back with something smart. She wanted to spout off everything she knew about love. But no words escaped her throat as Roha laughed, "that's what I thought. You're still only a child...perhaps you can be saved. But Maui is no friend to me, and mark my words if he steps foot into my lair I'll incinerate him on the spot!"

Roha's bright hair exploded with fire as Moana winced from the heat, crying out as she was tossed from the goddesses hand and plummeted down, down towards the raging ocean.•

Moana's eyes snapped open from the dream, as cool ocean water engulfed her. Holding her breath and blinking dazedly, the young Wayfinder swam back up to the dark shadow of the canoe. Gasping as her face touched the air, Moana grasped onto the canoe's balancer as she breathed heavily for a moment. It was all just a dream,

'More like a nightmare,' Moana thought to herself, grunting as she hauled her wet form back up onto the canoe, frowning slightly as she looked around. Maui was not on board with her. Panic rising up from her gut, and the nightmare coming to mind, Moana whipped around in every direction. The canoe was no longer on open water. Maui had tied up the sail, and had hooked the mounting rope onto a little beach. It was barely big enough for one person and a coconut tree, and a few paces away around a jetty of tall rocks, Moana could hear loud snores.

Sighing in relief and plopping back down onto her haunches, Moana ran two hands through her thick, damp curls. Maui was still with her...Roha was wrong. And yet, she still felt the small tug of sadness in her gut. Grunting slightly, the Wayfinder picked up her abandoned oar and felt the carved autograph with her thumb. Sina used to tell stories about how she and Tui fell in love. Moana remembered imagining it like the story of Sina and the Eel. How her brave father killed the eel creature like Maui did so long ago, and how her mother was beautiful enough to gain the love of a monster from the sea.

Sina always described 'love' as something you felt inside. It's not a feeling that can really be described, but experienced. Moana had felt some types of love before, like for Pua, or Sina or Tui. And especially from Grandma Tala. But Moana had never felt...love love. Rohe was right about that part. Moana didn't know what it meant to love someone else. But what did that make her and Maui?