sixthiterationlogs | 11 - Lost Heart [OPEN]

WHO: Moana
WHERE: 7I – Ocean
WHEN: August 3rd
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: None

Sad Thoughts & Losses

Small earthquakes had begun to tremble through the two villages but Moana didn't pay them any attention. She crossed the breach and made her way towards the ocean that rested on the other side, hoping to find a friend waiting for her.

She stood at the shore, her feet bare while the wind tugged softly at her grass skirts. There was so much that Moana wanted to ask the ocean but she couldn't find her voice. She knew that it wouldn't reply to her, she was too far from the home that she knew. Frustration rose in her chest and she kicked at the water, sending thick droplets into the air around her.

"Why aren't you here!?" She yelled at the water before falling to her hands and knees. Everything hit her at once: the loss of her friends, the loss of the heart and the constant reminder of her failure that hung like a beacon around her neck. Moana began to cry softly, her body shaking as the tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

"I need you." She whispered to the ocean, her voice soft as she begged for some way to escape the crushing defeat that weighed heavily on her shoulders.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Moana laughed softly, though the smile was very short lived. "Who says you aren't both?"

She rarely got to be snarky or playful anymore. One by one, those she'd grown close to had begun to disappear. She didn't want Jax to disappear too. Even if he was annoying, it was the sort of annoying that she'd miss.

Moana moved so that her head was resting against Jax's shoulder and cold damp strands of her hair brush against his arm. "You're not allowed to leave." The comment was spoken like a stubborn child who was trying to declare things that were completely out of her control.

"Not planning on going anywhere," Jax says, challenging her right back. He keeps her close for a moment, wanting to comfort her. He's not good at this comfort shit, not with someone like Moana, but he tries to think about what he'd do for his boys. This isn't a skinned knee or a bump on the head but maybe, just maybe, he can comfort her some.

"Look, I know we don't get a lot of choices around here but I'm choosing to stay for a while. I don't want to leave you alone, kid. It's not fair to you."

Moana turned to look up at Jax. There was a lot about him that reminded her of Maui. They were far from the same person but they both shared traits that Moana found annoying. At the same time, he was thoughtful and trying his best to be the person that he wanted to be.

"Thank you." She said after a moment, rubbing at her eyes to make sure that it didn’t look like she was going to cry again. "I don’t know if you can… but I’m glad that you’d stay here for me." Moana knew that he had people back home to get to, his family and his sons. It was selfish to want him to stay with her just so she didn’t have to be alone.

"Hey," She spoke after a few seconds of silence. "Have you ever been sailing?"

"Sailing? Don't think so. Been on a boat before," Jax admits. "But it wasn't a sailboat. That's for rich fuckers and I'm not one of those. Just been on a speedboat before."

Not a lot of boating going on in Charming, honestly, and while he's been on a boat before and water-skiied, shit like that, it's not something he has a lot of experience with.

"I'm assuming you have, since you know how to do everything?"

Moana had no idea what a speedboat is. "A speedboat? What about a canoe?" She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that it was something that only the rich did. It felt backwards to her, though there was a lot about others societies that confused Moana, this was just going to be another one of those things.

Thinking about it was really distracting and for a few blissful seconds Moana had forgotten about her sadness. It returned but was somehow less than before.

At his prompting Moana shook her head. "I don't but I'm learning. A lot of people on my island sail. Not past the reef, not until I did anyway, but my people used to be voyagers. Before I was here, I found a caver of huge canoes. They'd been passed down from our ancestors and then forgotten. I thought maybe… we could sail away from here."

"Been in a kayak before. I guess that's kind of like a canoe," Jax says, thinking it over for a moment or two. He's not much for boats, considering he's always lived inland, but he's taken enough trips to have kayaked a couple times.

"If you think you can sail the damn thing, I can build you a boat. You might have to help me with the...sizes and stuff but I could do the work."

For Moana the words are almost synonymous. A boat was a boat and it was also a canoe and a kayak. It didn't matter what it was called as long as it took her across the sea. She looked over over the rolling waves again, her heart reaching towards the horizon.

"I can help. I know how they are made and how to repair one but I can't make the main section." She didn't know how.

"I can help you figure it out. Between the two of us, we'll figure out how to build one," Jax promises her. He doesn't want Moana to feel aimless and hopeless. She's better than he is, by a hell of a lot, and he wants to see her determined and smiling again.

"Don't give up, okay? Whatever you do, don't give up. That's not you, Kid."

Moana released a soft huff of air. "Not me? I'm not sure who I am… I'm just a girl who loves her island and the sea. I'm the daughter of Tui Waialiki… one day I'll be the chief of Motunui but… I left my island." She looked over at Jax, knowing that she was asking him a lot. She wanted to smile, she wanted to be strong and never give up but was that really her?

"What do you see? When you look at me?" So many people saw a child, someone who didn't know what they were doing. Maybe they were right.

"I see someone hellbent on getting what she wants no matter the price," Jax says.

"And that's an admirable quality. Most people would have given up on getting out of here by now but you haven't. You're going to build a boat and give it another shot. Anyone who doesn't admire that kind of tenacity is a damn idiot."

Moana felt herself smile, even though she didn't want to. "Thank you." Maybe he was right and maybe he wasn't but Moana wanted to believe him. She leaned against his shoulder again, curling her legs up to her chest like she was a child.

"Jax." She paused chewing over the words in her head. "I'll protect you too." Even if she failed and he left. "I'll keep trying." She didn't want to let him down.

"You find something I need protecting from, I'll appreciate the cover. Until then? You build that boat and I've got your back," Jax assures her. She's just a kid, really, but there's so much shit she can do that he can't and never will be able to and he'd be a fool not to admire that.

"We'll get out of here. You have to show me your island someday."

Moana smiled. "Yeah. I'll show you. I think you'd like it there." It was a beautiful island and one that Moana wanted to share with the friends that she had made here. "Thank you, Jax." She didn't consider herself to be a kid, but she knew that people saw her idealism and oddities as child-like. Not to mention her apparent innocence and lack of knowledge about the world outside of her island.

No matter what she faced, she didn't want to shy away from it. Like Tamatoa, she wanted to face things head on. With Jax by her side, she felt like she had the strength to do that.

11 - Lost Heart [OPEN]

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