Moana

Chapter Seven

"Crops are turning black!" a villager said as they all sat in the main hall for a meeting.

"What about the fish?" another asked as Tui picked up one of the dark plants that lay in front of him.

"This is happening all over the island," a third agreed as Tui found an answer.

"Please, please settle down," the chief said. "We will dig new fields. We will find a way to..."

"We can stop the darkness!" Moana said as she and Aukai ran in. Over her head, she held the heart of Te Fiti.

"Save our island!" she continued. "There's a cavern of boats. Huge canoes."

"She's right," Aukai agreed breathlessly. He didn't see the cavern, but he believed his friend. "We can take them, find your demigod Maui, and make him restore Te Fiti's heart. Moana has it right here.

"I may not be part of your people, and I don't remember my past. But I remember sailing across the sea. If I can have that chance again, I bet I can remember how."

"And to add on to that," Moana continued, "we were voyagers. We can voyage again!" All eyes fell on Tui.

Let's just say the word "angry" is too nice for the look he gave the two of them.

——

Tui stormed out of the hut with Moana following.

"You told me to help our people," Moana said, trying to reason with her father. "This is how we help our people."

Tui didn't listen. Instead, he pulled a torch out of the ground.

"Dad?" Moana asked. "What are you doing?"

"I should've burned those boats a long time ago!" Tui growled as he continued on his path.

"No! Don't!" Moana said, turning her father to face her. "We have to find Maui. We have to restore the heart!"

"There is no heart!" Tui shouted, grabbing the stone from his daughter's hand. "This is just a rock!"

"No!" Moana shouted as Tui threw the heart away. She ran into the darkness and found it. But what she found next almost broke her own heart.

It was her grandmother's cane.

Tui walked up to her as she picked it up. At that second, a conch horn sounded as a villager ran to the crest of the hill, waving his torch.

"Chief!" the villager cried. "It's your mother!" Tui's anger vanished in an instant.

Moana and Tui both ran back up to the main hall. Running inside, Moana's heart shattered. Her grandmother lay under a blanket, a tapestry of Maui watched over her. Sitting at the old woman's sides were Sina, who looked at her daughter in worry, and Aukai, who dabbed Tala's forehead with a wet cloth.

"Mother..." Tui whispered as he ran to his mother's side. Moana joined them, quietly sobbing as she sat next to Aukai.

Moana looked at her parents, who sighed with sorrow in their eyes as they both stood up to face the village healer. They asked what could be done, but they didn't know.

Tala grabbed the kids' hands, causing Moana and Aukai to both look down at her. She whispered something weakly to the two of them.

"Gramma," Moana said as she leaned in closer. Aukai heard this time as well. A single word escaped Tala's lips.

"Go."

"Not now," Moana said. "We can't."

"You both must!" Tala whispered. "The ocean chose the two of you. Follow the fish hook."

"Take it easy," Aukai said softly as Tala gasped for air.

"And when you find Maui... you grab him by the ear," Tala continued. "One of you say... 'We are Moana and Aukai of Motunui.'" As she continued, she took off her necklace, placed the heart inside, and gave it to Moana. "'You will board our boat... sail across the sea... and restore the heart of Te Fiti.'"

"I can't leave you," Moana sobbed, her voice breaking. Aukai stood up and stepped aside so Moana could have this moment with her grandmother.

"There is nowhere you could go that I won't be with you," Tala reassured, closing her eyes and pulling Moana's face in. Their foreheads and noses touched. A final farewell.

"Aukai," Tala whispered. Moana then stood up as the pirate boy knelt next to the old woman again. "You were brought to us for a reason. This is the reason. Protect my granddaughter." Tala took his hand.

"Promise me... you'll protect her."

Aukai nodded. Aside from Moana, Tala was the only person he trusted on the island. She knew he was brought to them for a reason. This was it.

"I promise," he vowed. "I swear it on my life."

Tala smiled as she lay her head back down. Moana and Aukai backed up. Moana looked at the necklace in her hand before looking at her grandmother one last time.

"Go!" Tala whispered as the healers tried to help her. Moana and Aukai then looked up at the picture of Maui, grinning at them as he held his fish hook in one hand and the heart in the other.

Gaining confidence, Moana fastened the necklace around her neck and ran out. Aukai followed before heading toward his hut.

"There's a line where the sky meets the sea and it calls me," Moana sang in her mind as she gathered food.

Her mother caught her, but instead of stopping her, she helped finish.

"But no one knows how far it goes," Aukai sang in his mind as he shouldered his bag of food.

Looking in the corner of his hut, he saw his cutlass leaning against a corner. Gaining a look of determination, he grabbed it and sheathed it in his buckler. He might need it.

"All that time wondering where I need to be is behind me," Moana thought as she gave her mother one last hug before joining Aukai, who waited patiently, on their way back to the cavern.

"We're on our own to worlds unknown!" Aukai finished as Moana held up the heart in torchlight. She compared it to the spiral on the sail.

A perfect match.

"Every turn we take," the two harmonized in their minds as they got ready to set sail.

"Every trail we track

"Is a choice we make

"Now we can't turn back from the great unknown

"Where we go alone

"Where we long to be!"

The canoe sailed through the waterfall and toward the ocean. Moana and Aukai took one last look at the hut. Lights died as a mysterious breeze blew.

Appearing in the water, a giant manta ray glowing with blue energy.

"See her light up the night in the sea," Moana sang with a sad smile as the manta swam underneath.

"She calls me!"

"And, yes I know," Aukai sang as the ray jumped out of the wave.

"That you can go!"

"There's a moon in the sky," the two harmonized as Moana opened the sail.

"And the wind is behind me

"Soon we'll know

"How far we'll go!"

The canoe smoothly cut over the waves that formed at the reef's edge. They did it. They made it past the reef.

Smiling at each other, Moana and Aukai followed the fish hook in the sky.

Their adventure had begun.