Prompt Post 4!
The first, second, and third posts are now shut down for prompting. All new prompts must be posted here. Any new prompts posted to Prompt Post 1, 2, and 3 will be deleted without warning.
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“It’s hard to be a leader, sometimes, isn’t it?” said Moana.
Something in her voice was so sure, so knowing, that Elsa laughed. Only a brief giggle, breaking out through her composure, and then she regained herself and clasped her hands in front of her, glided back to take her seat at the table in turn. “You are one,” she replied, equally certain.
“Once.” For a moment, Moana’s eyes were harder to read. “I was Chief to my people.”
Elsa’s smile faltered.
“But that passed to my daughter a long time ago.” Moana shifted, crossing her legs, and leant back more into her chair. “And I could sail again.”
Demigod, she had said. “How long?” said Elsa, softly.
For a moment, Moana did not answer, running her finger over the delicate rim of the china cups that Gerda had set out. Then her eyes flicked up to meet Elsa’s again. “Over two thousand years,” she said.
Somehow, she did not gasp, or even move. Elsa simply stared, felt herself staring and could not stop it, as Moana surveyed her as if waiting for a reaction. But there was not one in her, it seemed; the idea was so huge, so world-tilting, that Elsa simply did not know how to respond to it.
“I was human, once,” Moana continued, perhaps as it became clear that Elsa could not find words. “Then the Ocean chose me as…” she glanced at the oar, as one would another person. “As part of it, I suppose. Or its champion.” A quirk of a smile. “I noticed after a couple of decades, but the Ocean’s never been much of one for answers.”
“You… control the ocean?” said Elsa, thinking of what she had seen the ship do.
But Moana shook her head, smiling. “More like I negotiate with it. Sometimes it helps… sometimes it does what it wants. But it’s the Ocean. I couldn’t expect anything else.”
“But you have powers,” Elsa said, hearing the desperation in her own voice as soon as the words left her. She straightened up in her chair and looked away, abruptly embarrassed at herself. “My apologies.”
“It’s, it’s fine,” said Moana. She reached back over her shoulder, took hold of the oar, and spun it round itself as she brought it over and down to rest across her lap. “Some of it’s me. Some of it’s… this.” The oar was old wood, even Elsa could see that, worn smooth with countless years and countless touches. But there was a carving in the flat of it, a slightly jagged heart and a definitely jagged fishhook. “The gods do that, it seems. But even without it, I’d still be immortal. I’d still have my way with the sea, like Maui has his way with words.”
“Maui?”
“An old friend of mine. Even older than I am.” Moana tapped the carvings on the oar. “He has this fishhook, and it’s the source of most of his powers. Not quite all, though - he can still spin a tale with the rest of them. Was still immortal, still strong. And this,” another tap of the oar, “it adds some things. But the Ocean and me, we go way back.”
“Adds?”
The sight of the boat, dipping and weaving impossibly, had been impressive enough; as soon as Elsa had seen the swing of the water, its impossible and magical movements, she had felt weak at the knees. The thought of something more was enough to all but shatter her thoughts. She swayed at the waist, putting one hand on the table, and her vision swam. The next thing that she knew, there was a warm, rough hand on her shoulder, fingers of the other pressing into her wrist as Moana checked her pulse.
She laughed, unsteadily. “My heart is fine.”
“It never hurts to check,” said Moana. “Breathe deeply, now.”
She did, knowing panic well and having long since learnt how best to counter it. But there was something in Moana’s voice that helped, and it took only a few breaths for her to be able to straighten up again. Moana released her wrist, but kept a hand on her shoulder.
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