***I'll upload another four chapters tomorrow.***
The first tremor rolled through the island like a heartbeat returning to the world.
Then came the second—stronger, slower—and the sky turned green.
It wasn't the soft emerald of living things. It was brilliance — a light that burned through the clouds, staining the ocean like glass shot through with sunrise. The wind died, the birds vanished, and every tree bent inland as though bowing.
From the sea, something vast began to rise.
Petals. Vines. Roots the size of ships coiling upward until they formed the outline of a woman so colossal the horizon struggled to hold her. Te Fiti's spirit towered over the islands, her body woven from living foliage and volcanic stone. Where the leaves overlapped, glowing veins of creation pulsed — gold and green intertwined. Her eyes opened last, twin lanterns of judgment.
The air went still.
Moana stood rooted to the sand, her paddle clutched white-knuckled. "She's here…"
Maui stepped forward, jaw tight, tattooed muscles flexing as the surf withdrew from his feet. "Yeah and she's ticked off."
The goddess's voice came with the wind itself, wordless at first — a resonance that shook every grain of sand, every drop of water. The villagers cried out, clutching their ears as huts collapsed. Heartless scattered across the shoreline shriveled to ash before the sound.
Then came the words, layered and low:
"Where… is the child of shadow?"
The phrase rippled through the currents, echoed by every wave. Clouds split into ribbons of emerald light, forming spirals above the island.
Maui grabbed Moana's arm, dragging her behind a broken wall. "Everybody move! Get to higher ground!"
Villagers fled uphill, but Skuld didn't move.
She stood in the center of the beach, hair whipping around her face, the flower in her chest pulsing like a beacon. The wind carried petals that gathered around her feet — a storm of light and color drawn to her presence.
She could feel it — the link between them stretching taut.
When she spoke, her voice sounded small in the ocean's roar. "Goddess Te Fiti… the Kurai probably left this world. She's—"
The sea exploded.
A pillar of water slammed into the shore, hurling Skuld backward. Her back hit the sand with a crack that stole her breath. The flower in her chest burned so hot she thought it might brand her skin from the inside.
Te Fiti's face lowered until it filled the sky. Her expression was neither rage nor cruelty — it was grief given form.
"She has taken what was mine."
"You walked with her."
"Why?"
Every word struck like thunder. The beach fractured; molten veins bled through the cracks, meeting the waves in hissing bursts of steam.
Moana ran forward but a gust of divine wind hurled her back. "Skuld!" she screamed, her voice lost to the roar.
Skuld struggled to rise. Her knees trembled, sand slick with blood and salt. "She didn't take it out of… malice probably!" she shouted, but the sound vanished into the storm.
Maui flung his hook into the air, shouting at the sky. "Hey! Big lady! Yell at me instead! I'm the one who started all this the first time, remember?" His laugh cracked mid-sentence. "You wanna throw mountains? I can take it!"
Lightning slammed into the ocean in response, searing the water white. The demigod winced, ducking behind his hook. "Okay, not funny anymore!"
Te Fiti's gaze never shifted from Skuld. The flower in the girl's chest flared again, lines of light racing outward like roots through the sand until they reached the goddess's feet. The link connected — and vision flooded Skuld's mind.
For an instant she wasn't herself.
She saw a small shape of light drifting in the ocean's cradle. Saw the warmth of creation turning cold, confused, lonely. The fragment—Te Vera—reached out for the sea not to destroy but to belong. And she saw Kurai standing above that light, shadow bleeding into it, trying to cage what she couldn't understand.
The vision snapped. Skuld gasped, collapsing to her knees. Her chest glowed white, the flower's edges burning into her skin.
Moana stumbled to her side, trying to steady her. "She's linked to you—what's happening?"
"She's… probably feeling what Te Fiti feels," Maui said quietly. "That bond cuts both ways."
Te Fiti leaned closer, voice lower now but sharper, every syllable vibrating the bones of the earth. "You carry my heart's echo. You feel her. Tell me where she is."
"I don't know exactly," Skuld whispered. "But she's alive. I can feel her heartbeat through the flower."
The goddess's eyes narrowed — not anger, but the ache of betrayal made manifest. Vines lashed from the sea, towering tendrils that wrapped around shattered buildings. They didn't strike; they trembled.
Skuld forced herself upright again, legs buckling beneath her. "Please—she's just lost! If you destroy everything now, you'll kill what's left of yourself! I swear I'll bring her back."
Maui opened his mouth to interject, but Moana's hand stopped him. The ocean between them had gone utterly still.
Te Fiti's form loomed motionless for what felt like an eternity. Then her voice came one last time, slow and resonant, a verdict passed by the earth itself.
"Then bring her home… or I will reclaim her through you."
The vines withdrew. The light in her chest dimmed. Her enormous shape began to dissolve into petals that drifted upward, caught in invisible currents. Where they touched the island, greenery withered — half of the trees turning brown in seconds, the ground draining of color.
The storm ceased.
Skuld collapsed face-first into the sand as the last glow of Te Fiti's presence faded. The flower in her chest flickered weakly, smoke curling from its edges.
Moana knelt beside her, shaking her shoulder. "Skuld! Hey, stay with me!"
No response—only shallow breaths and the soft hiss of waves returning to the shore.
Maui looked toward the horizon where the goddess had vanished, jaw set, voice low. "We just survived a god's heartbreak. Next time she calls, we might not."
He turned back toward the village. The people were kneeling in silence, half of the island bathed in shadow, half in light—divinity leaving its scar.
Moana looked down at the unconscious girl, then at the dim flower still pulsing faintly in her chest. "Then we don't wait for next time," she murmured. "We find her first."
The tide rolled in, washing away the footprints, leaving only wilted petals scattered along the sand.