—

Everything's dying.

Well, not everything. Yet. God, why'd she think that, she probably just jinxed everything now.

Their coconuts aren't producing milk, instead coming up dry and inedible with this weird black stuff inside them whenever they crack them open. It's like black sand, she thinks.

Dad's been gradually giving her the reins on duties around the village, which included coming up with a solution to things like this.

Make new groves in this area. Or maybe over here. That was easy enough.

Oh? There's no more fish? Go behind the island, there's gotta be more—

"We... we already did," the fisherman tells them sullenly, fidgeting with the basket he held that should've been filled to the brim with morsels on a normal day. It's not, it's empty.

Well.

"What about..." she hesitates here because the one person that would be so against her idea was standing right beside her. "...beyond the reef?"

Dad, in typical dad fashion when it comes to anything involving the words beyond and reef too close together, blows up. Not literally. Yet. Sometimes Moana thinks he might actually build up to it one day.

"You—" he sputters before grabbing her by the arm and pulling her a short distance away from the fisherman. He looks at her with one part agitated, and the other doused in thinly-veiled disappointment. "We went over this."

The only thing that anything went over was dad's head when it came to Moana's love for the ocean and everything that went beyond it.

"They can't find fish, dad," she grounds out. "First it's the coconuts, now it's the fish. Maybe Gramma Tala's stories were—"

"Right?" He finishes for her before scoffing and shaking his head, looking away from her with angry eyes. "I— we don't have time for tales, Moana. You need to grow out of this."

And then he turns his back on her and goes back to the fishermen waiting awkwardly nearby.

I hate this. I hate you.

She goes to the shore to find Gramma Tala and hopefully ease her mind.

—

She doesn't.

She doesn't know where Gramma Tala is, or why it's now out of all times where Moana feels so bottled up that she feels like she's about to blow up.

So, she waits, near the shore but in a private little space where there's only a single curved palm tree that she uses as a seat.

Mom finds her just ten minutes into Moana's weekly sulking session.

She imparts a story; nothing like the grand stories Gramma Tala tells her, but significant all the same. About dad. Why he hates the idea of anyone going beyond the reef, why he always looked so scared of Moana's unnatural fascination in the sea and beyond.

(Because the death of someone of his blood, his love, his soul — would be enough to send him over the edge.)

(Fear.)

What was once unbridled agitation at not being understood turns into guilt and a small slither of grudging understanding.

But it wasn't going to stop Moana. She couldn't just reshape the way the ocean drew her in like a moth to flame, the way her mind wandered to all that existed beyond their little island and more.

When Mom leaves, she wonders, not for the first time, when she'll finally be able to see more than the mountains of her island.

Motunui was home. But the Ocean promised more.

—

The Ocean, for all it was, is far less helpful than what she'd imagined. The waves were predictable, easy the first few go-overs. But then they'd gotten bigger and stronger the closer she'd neared the edge of the reef. And maybe that wasn't the ocean's fault, but with the last wave almost sending her canoe underwater, she couldn't give a single care to logic as her shaky hands desperately tried to guide her canoe over the next wave.

(Later, she'd wither from the inside when she realises just how fragile the boat she'd been using was.)

Pua was with her, all excited just like she was. Now, he looked absolutely terrified. Just like she was.

"Could use a little help!" She'd point out with a brief burning glare towards the Ocean.

Nothing. Like it was pretending it wasn't right there when it was everywhere.

She had ended up with a bruise on her foot and a wounded pride with the remains of the tarnished canoe washing up on the shore alongside her. Pua was traumatised, that much was clear by the way he squealed so loudly when a wave even came close to touching his feet.

"Well," Gramma Tala suddenly drawled from behind Moana where she had been taking a long moment to silently curse the Ocean in all the ways she knew possible on the sand.

Turning around, Gramma Tala was standing there with the wooden cane dad had given her when she'd started to limp more. She rarely used it, but she's been having it on her a lot more often now.

"Don't tell dad," is the first thing that comes from Moana's mouth, expression morose.

Seeing Gramma Tala's mischievous smile brings a lot more relief than it usually does.

"I'm his mother, I don't have to tell him anything," Gramma Tala says, smile widening.

(Later, Moana wishes that she'd told dad more.)

"Why didn't it listen to me," Moana mumbles lowly, shooting the ocean a particularly mean look that would have earned her a jet of water at her face if she were closer.

Gramma Tala takes a moment to glance out over the ocean before leaning towards Moana so she can put one arm around her shoulders.

"The sea isn't always going to give you what you ask for," she tells her with a sage, solemn shake of her head. She glances in the direction of the sea again. "But it will give you what you need."

Moana lets those words sink in for a moment, thoughtful.

Then immediately scowled right after.

So, the Ocean broke her boat, nearly drowned her and poor Pua because she needed it?

Thanks, but no thanks.