Chapter Text
Matangi had known there would be consequences to her aiding Maui and his mortal friend, Moana the Wayfinder. What those consequences might have been, she had dared not think, fearing that even the notion of a thought would put it into motion. Even still, she had never expected this when Nalo roped her wrists in lightning chains. She had not expected to be dragged from the stone pillars she’d missed for so long, having been caged deep beneath the ocean in that clam’s belly. She had not expected such cruelty.
And Nalo was a cruel god. She knew that from the moment she called his name millennia ago, and she knew it now as she curled into herself, lost in his new prison. Within the clam, Matangi was accompanied by her flying foxes and the strange beasts that called its body home. There were stone formations and algae and proof that the world still moved. Now she was trapped within a never ending storm. Alone.
Roaring clouds darker than the blackest nights whipped in violent curls just out of reach. Nalo’s unnatural purple lightning sparked at her heels no matter which direction she walked, even if her feet never graced solid ground. Nalo even stole Matangi’s ability to keep herself company; his booming thunder and pounding rains drowned her voice to the point it was as if she had never spoken at all.
Nalo was truly the cruelest of the gods.
When Matangi first found herself here, she was enraged. She screamed and screeched, her voice having always been the most piercing of the gods, but Nalo too was booming and powerful. Her words never met his ears, let alone left her throat. Next she sought an exit. She wandered for hours (days? minutes?) in a single direction. The pumice beneath her feet repeated the same pattern every two steps, and the only true change was the curls in the storm clouds that trapped her within her Matangi sized cage. Once, she traveled from the solid ground up into the storm. The storm swallowed the rock immediately and gifted her anxiety in return.
What if she never found ground again?
Would she float aimlessly in Nalo’s wrath for all eternity?
Which direction had she been traveling?
Her cries only forced out thunderous waves that ripped through her eardrums. In a fit of desperation, she let go of her hold and gravity snatched her up. Matangi collapsed into a pathetic heap upon the pumice floor after falling barely three feet. Silent tears of relief streamed down her cheeks, plopping just as silently upon the rock. Matangi’s toes never left the ground after that. If Nalo could see her, his chest would swell with laughter and pride, having finally clipped the Bat Lady’s wings.