Chapter Text
The cave was just where the villagers said, across a small clearing and nestled at the base of a mossy cliff. Moana adjusted her pack before sliding down a slight slope at the edge of the treeline. She pushed aside hanging vines from the cave’s entrance. The tunnel twisted down into the dark. Moana took out her flint and torch, striking sparks until the oil-soaked bamboo fibers caught light.
The villagers on the nearby island had been adamant she shouldn’t come. The cave held magnificent, indeed magical, treasures. But it was guarded by a great monster. It had been years since anyone had tried their luck, and lifetimes since anyone came back alive.
Her left shoulder ached, an old wound, but Moana ignored it and stepped lightly into the cavern, detritus softening the sound of her footfalls. With her free hand she drew the whalebone machete at her waist. She was determined to bring back a trophy, but she’d take precautions while doing so. Maui wasn’t the only one who could bring gifts to her people. And treasure from a cursed cave might finally get him to admit it.
The tunnel continued down. The moist and moss gave way to dry air and pockmarked rock. It grew cooler, like the chill before dawn, just enough to make her shiver. The light of her torch touched the corners and crannies of the cave, scaring semi-translucent insects as she passed. They scuttled away in flashes of legs, their long antennae waving at her from cracks in the wall.
Moana stopped at an impasse. The floor was littered with great slabs of rock, bigger than she was tall and wider than her boat. She looked up. Through the dancing shadows she could see the jagged roof from which the stones had fallen.
She huffed and transferred the machete from her right hand to the left, awkwardly grasping both it and the torch. Slowly, and with much cursing, she climbed the rough stones. At one point, she lay the knife and torch on a shelf, only to have the torch nearly roll off and back down the debris. She caught it just as it became airborne and took a second to be grateful it hadn’t been the blade.
She came to the peak. There was just enough room between the rubble and the ceiling to pick her way through. Thought the ceiling itself was little more than rubble that had yet to fall.
“Just… stay put until I’ve left, ok?” The rocks didn’t respond but Moana gave them a nervous thumbs up anyway.
Soon she’d passed through the maze of stone. As she stepped around the last slab of rock she found herself at the entrance of an enormous cavern, big enough to fit her entire village and then some. Plateaus and platforms and twisting paths stood above pits and gaping holes. All throughout were pedestals, shrines, and alcoves, each dedicated to a treasure. Some of them glowed or flashed and flickered. Colors bounced off polished ivory and precious metals, bathing the entire cavern in dancing lights.
“Wow... “ Moana laughed. “Eat your heart out, Maui!”
She blew out her torch and hopped and slid down the broken rocks and into the cavern proper.
“Okay. Only one...” she whispered to herself. This was the rule of the cavern. The villagers had told her you could only take one item back with you, otherwise you’d never leave. But which one?
She inspected alcoves as she passed. There was an orb with swirling colors, like paint on the water’s surface. A knife as long as her leg, the hilt encrusted with jewels. Levitating above a pit, a ribbon with shells stitched into delicate rows. With each twist and twirl of the fabric the shells clinked together weaving a tinkling song. On a stand below black sand rose and fell, making shapes. As Moana passed, the sand twisted into the form of a girl, only to fall again into a formless mass.
Some of the items were beautiful, like the crystal whale with its blue glow deep within. Some she passed quickly, a feeling of unease rolling off them in waves. Some seemed almost alive, almost aware. All were clearly more than mere trinkets.
Moana let out a breath. Standing on one of the larger platforms, she looked around at the treasures surrounding her. How could she choose? She didn’t even know what any of them DID.
She tapped her chin with the hilt of her knife, thinking. To her left was a small pedestal. On it sat three smooth stones. They glowed with an orange light. She approached and poked one with the tip of her blade. Immediately the stones flashed. Fire leapt from the rocks to her machete, the flames racing up it’s length. She dropped it with a yelp. It hit the ground with a clack as the fire engulfed it. The leather wrap quickly burned to ash, the bone blade splitting in the heat.
“Okay. Not those.” Moana backed away from the smoking mess. Further up a stairway was an alcove holding a small plant. She tossed a pebble at its roots. Leaves and vines sprouted around the rock twisting and growing until it had been hidden from sight.
“Well that’s not so bad.” But the vines continued to grow, spilling out of the alcove and onto the stairs. Moana stepped out of reach of the grasping greenery. “Okay that’s… I’ll try something else.”
She continued on. The next treasure was a small carved idol that screamed when disturbed. The next a basket of fruit that stayed full no matter how many pieces you took (but Moana was afraid to eat any.) After that was a basket that jumped and rocked with whatever was inside. (She didn't open it.) A pockmarked skull with a sweet-smelling liquid pouring from its mouth, the rock where it fell sizzled. A coconut that exploded when prodded, then reformed.
After hours of searching Moana was tired and hungry and just about ready to throw those fire rocks on everything in the cave. Perhaps she should shift from finding the “best” treasure and just pick the least worse.
“ ‘You can only take one.’ Pff! Who’d want more than one?”
She came to a tapestry hanging on a smooth wall. It’s patterns were exquisitely intricate, it’s threads thin and delicate with streaks of emerald. Along the edge where depictions of daily life in an interlocking chain. A swaddled infant sleeping, A child playing in a field, A small figure working the field, parents with their children, elders by a fire, all the way around and back to the infant. In the center were three figures, a large one, a medium one, and finally a child.
“Soooo… What do you do? Turn people to stone?” Moana cocked a hip. “Trap them in your pictures? Just… get really dirty and refuse to be cleaned?” The tapestry didn't answer. Moana picked up a pebble and tossed it at the fabric. Nothing terrible happened so she took a step closer and poked it with the butt of her torch. Again, nothing.
Slowly, she reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers against it. When the cloth remained still she let out a breath of relief.
“Alright! We have a winner!”
She grabbed the edges of the tapestry and gave a flick, unhooking it from its fastenings. It folded in her arms, as soft as a child’s hair, it’s emerald threads glinting in the cavern’s soft glow. It was warm and… constricting?
“Argh!” The fabric was wrapping itself around her arms. She flung it the ground. “ARGH!’ She yelled again, gave it a kick. “Fine!” With quick movements she shoved the tapestry into her pack. “I’m done! I’m done with this stupid cavern and you’re going to stay in there and not behave!” She closed her pack with a hard tug on it’s drawstring.
“And stay in there!”
Moana swept up her torch, marched to the broken rubble of the exit, and left with a humph and a rude hand gesture.
No longer caring about being silent, she stomped and grumbled the rest of the way back. The sky outside was just beginning to turn the purples of evening, the sun having fallen below the trees while she was inside. She adjusted her pack and began her way across the clearing as birds sang their twilight songs. With luck she might make it back to the neighboring island, and its village, before midnight.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Moana stopped mid-step, one foot still in the air.
“You’re Maui’s little friend, aren’t you?”
The voice was big and behind her. She turned.
Clutching the cliff face above the cave like a giant spider, Tamatoa grinned down at her, his shell and teeth catching the last rays of sunlight through the trees. He stepped from the rocky wall and into the clearing with a delicacy belying his size.
Moana backed away at his approach, but knew she couldn’t outrun the enormous crustacean.
“You’re the monster that guards the cave.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say guard.” He twirled a claw dismissively. “Implies I’m trying to keep you lot out. No! I’ve set an alarm, tells me when little mortals go poking around in there. And those lucky ones that make it out get the privilege of donating their booty to me!”
And suddenly he’d swept down to look Moana in the eyes, rotten breath blowing over her face as he spoke. “So hand it over.”
Hours in a cave full of frustrations, weeks at sea, and all for nothing?
“No.”
“Wasn’t a request, Babe.” And with that he reared back, bringing a boat sized claw up to smash the hapless human. Moana flung herself to the side, inches from from the resounding blow. Grass and turf flew into the air, landing on her as she scrambled to her feet. He swept his claw after her, sending her tumbling along the ground.
“Let’s make this quick, scruffy. Got places to be.”
He came in for another blow and Moana dodged again, this time running under the crab’s carapace. But Tamatoa shifted his back foot, catching her in the side. She hit the ground shoulder first, (her left shoulder! Why her did it have to be her left?) joints popping with the impact. By the time she’d regained her feet Tamatoa’s claw was already descending.
In desperation she cried out, “IT’S DELICATE!”
The claw stopped, just touching her hair.
“Delicate?”
“Yes! Yes. If you crush me you’ll break it, too.”
Quickly He swept her up and she found herself suspended in the air in an unfortunately familiar manner.
“How delicate?”
“Oh! Super delicate. Like, I’m afraid it might even be broken now.” Moana slid her pack around and peeked inside, feigning worry. The tapestry sat in a twisted bundle, just as before. “Oh, thank goodness! Just a little ruffled!” She smiled.
“What is it?” Tamatoa tried to get a look at the contents but Moana hugged the pack to her chest.
“I-- I can barely even describe it! It’s just so... so magnificent!”
“Is it shiny?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘shiny’ so much as ‘mind-bogglingly dazzling!’”
Tamatoa growled and made to pluck her pack from her but Moana shielded it from his grasp, his bulky claws unable to get a hold of the pack without potentially damaging its contents.
“You keep this up and I’ll start pulling off limbs, yeah? So give it.”
Moana frowned. “You’ll just eat me after I give it to you.”
Tamatoa reared back with a gasp. “I would never!”
Moana didn’t dignify that with a response.
“Ok, I would. But I won’t! Promise.”
The crab’s smile was entirely too wide for Moana’s comfort. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“No I’m not!” He paused, realizing his implicit admission. “All right, I am.” He cleared his throat and, with an expression of utmost gravity, lay his free claw over his left breast. “I, Tamatoa the beautiful,” he winked, “swear on my treasure that I will let you leave unharmed in exchange for that raggy little bag and its contents.” He smiled. “There, how’s that?”
She had little choice. With a sigh she said, “All right. But put me down first!”
He placed her back on her feet, confident he could catch her if she tried to flee. He watched intently as she lay the pack on the ground and stepped away, backing up further as he turned all of his focus onto her bag.
The enormous crustacean took either side of the pack in the tips of his claws and pulled. With a rip it spilt its contents onto the grass below. With an excited giggle Tamatoa rifled through the items. Her torch and flint, wrapped dried fish, a small knife, twine, other odds and ends, and of course the tapestry.
Moana had continued to slink away as he searched and was nearly to the edge of the clearing when Tamatoa’s smile turned sour.
“A carpet?” He held up the tapestry. “You went into a cave of wonders and left with a flippin’ carpet?!” He shook the offending tapestry at her. Tamatoa snarled and began towards her again, each step digging into the soft earth.
Moana ran, vaulting over brush and up the fern speckled slope at the clearing’s edge. At the top she chanced a glance back. But the crab wasn’t following. Instead, he was focused again on the tapestry. Specifically, he was focused on getting it off.
“What is this?” he shook his claw but the cloth had wrapped itself around the tips of his pincers. He tried prying it loose and scraping it against the ground but it held fast. Indeed, far from coming off, the patterns seemed to melt from the fabric and onto his claw, running like emerald rivers down his arm.
“No! No! What is it doing?”
Moana watched from behind a palm as Tamatoa’s efforts grew more frantic. He clawed at his arm, trying to stop the spread of magic but the looping patterns continued unabated past his shoulder and across his chest. The glowing lines slipped below the treasure on his carapace, down each leg, his other arm, his neck, face, and to the tips of each antennae, until every inch of his body was entwined.
And with that it stopped.
Tamatoa stood cringing in the center of the clearing. He opened an eye, tension slowly falling away. “Well this…” He studied the slight glow of the threads crisscrossing his body. “This isn’t so--”
The threads constricted like a net pulled tight and with a flash Tamatoa disappeared, his treasure raining to the floor in a cacophonic cascade.
Moana peaked out from behind her cover. Gold and pearls and polished shells lay scattered across the grove. Slowly, the silence faded into bird song once more.
Moana stepped back into the clearing, careful to avoid glinting shards of shell and glass.
“Hello?”
Gone.
What kind of magic was that? Had he been sent somewhere else? Turned into air? Was he… dead?
Moana jumped as a conche shell toppled down a pile of treasure. She held still, watching where it had fallen from. Another shift, more coins and baubles slid and fell.
The young woman leant down and, keeping her eyes on the moving pile, grasped a piece of ivory the length of her arm. Holding it like a club, she climbed carefully up the mound of glittering treasure. At the top she stopped, watching as something moved under a wide flat shell.
With a quick flick of her bone club Moana flipped the shell away. Two eyes blinked against the fading light. Squinting up at her was Tamatoa. Admittedly smaller, no larger than Pua even, but undoubtedly the bedazzled crab that had spent the last five minutes trying to kill her.
For a moment, neither moved. Then Tamatoa flicked an antenna. Moana responded with a yell and a swing of her club. Tamatoa responded to her response with his own yell and a frantic dash down the side on the treasure mound, but he quickly lost his footing on the shifting shells. He landed, hard, at the base. Moana followed with little more grace but with great conviction, her weapon hitting with enough force to shatter a clamshell just to his left. He fled to the right, desperately trying to scramble over shells and bones now bigger than himself.
“Not so tough now, are you?” Moana had an easier time, her legs long enough to vault over obstacles the crab had to skirt.
A wrong turn and he was hemmed in by a mammoth tooth and a golden platter. He tried to climb over but by then Moana had caught up and used her ivory cudgel to knock him down. He searched for an escape route but there was nowhere Moana couldn’t reach first. Tamatoa shrunk back against his treasure, staring with wide eyes at the girl towering above.
“It’s not so fun being chased around by a giant, is it?” She gestured with her club in sharp, angry jabs. He gasped with every swing and tried to retreat further, but with his back against unyielding gold he could do nothing more than turn up the ground with his wheeling feet.
“H-help--”
“How does it feel?”
“HELP! MAUIIII!”
“Ma--” Moana paused. “Maui? Why would he help you?”
The crab, lips wobbling, sniffled, “you know Maui?”
“Uh, yeah. Why would you? I mean--”
Tamatoa perked up. “Well he’s my friend! And if you, if you eat me, he’ll knock your head off!” He emphasized his point with a thrust of his claw, then seemed to remember himself and drew back in. “He would. He can do that.”
Moana stared. This was… an odd play. Tamatoa grew uncomfortable under her gaze and began to fidget. He looked around and spotting a small opal picked it up.
“This is, um… this is very nice.” He glanced at the other treasures scattered around as he turned the stone in his claws. “Is this all yours?”
Moana’s jaw dropped.
“Is… is that a yes?”
Moana slid into a crouch to eye him better. He flinched but stayed put. She pointed to herself and asked, “do you know who I am?”
The crustacean's gaze flicked back and forth from her face to their surroundings, as if searching for clues. “You’re… ah… Well, clearly you’re a, ummm,” he draw out the syllable as he studied her face.
Moana nodded slowly, brow raised. “Ummm?”
“Ummm--” He nodded along with her.
“Mmmmoooo…” She waved her hand in a circular motion.
“Mmmmoooo....” He mimicked the gesture.
“Moaaaa…”
“Moaaa… MOA! You’re a moa!” He grinned and shuffled his feet in excitement, only to frown a moment later. “You’re awfully featherless for a bird.”
“Moana! My name’s Moana.”
Tamatoa gasped. “Like the Ocean?”
“Yes. Moana like the ocean.”
“Oh! Maui’s told me about you! He says you’re nuts!” Tamatoa quickly backtracked at Moana’s unamused look. “That is, not bad nuts! More like, ‘oh! She’s like a nut, so… delicious?’ ” He smiled nervously.
“So you don’t remember me?”
“I remember you chasing me! Here. In this place that I have no-- where are we?”
Moana wilted. “Oh boy.”