The stars are full and bright in the sky, the moon shining overhead, by the time Maui's adoring crowd of young fans has dispersed into the wings of their parents. It's only when Arihi extinguishes the flames pinning down the corners of the fale tele that Maui realizes he hasn't seen Moana yet. He spends an eighth-rotation of the stars wandering their small island when he discovers her in, of all places, a coconut grove.

"I know you adore me, Curly," he drawls, "but spending all your time in a coconut grove is just weird."

She jumps, startled. Maui frowns. Normally Curly doesn't frighten that easy.

Then, upon seeing him, she blows out an impatient breath and mumbles something, which seems to involve several uncomplimentary wishes on his magnificent physical countenance.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she mutters, and rubs at her eyes.

She turns her back to him and winds through the trunks of the coconut trees. Instead of paying attention to him, it looks like she's - peering around them...? What exactly is she looking for in a coconut grove?

"So, how's the life of a Chief treatin' you these days?" he asks casually, swinging his fishhook off his shoulder to rest it under his chin, crossing his arms above the handle.

She grunts impatiently at him, then yawns again. Even as he watches, her eyes start to slide shut. Then, out of nowhere, Moana smacks herself in the face, hard.

His chin slides off his crossed arms as he nearly falls off his fishhook. "Uh, Curly?"

"Something's happening to our chickens," she explains, rubbing the sore skin tenderly. Every third word she seems to swallow a yawn. "I keep getting complaints about it. So," she gestures around her, "I gotta figure out where they're going."

Maui squints at her. "Um. Curly, it's nighttime. It's gonna be kinda hard to see."

"Wayfinders don't need to sleep."

Maui can hardly refrain from rolling his eyes in exasperation. "When you're on the water, sure. If you fall asleep on the water, you might get off course." Or capsize. Or collide straight into a warboat full of Kakamora and end up with a blowdart between your eyes. He shudders. "But you're on land, Curly. Even Chiefs gotta nap sometimes."

"Yeah, but if I don't figure this out, I'll have to -" a huge yawn cuts off her sentence, before she finishes determinedly "- find them tomorrow."

"I get the feeling that, tomorrow, you'll be in better shape to find them."

"Gotta be in better shape to do other, uh, Chief-ly stuff tomorrow," she counters. It's really not up to her standard witticisms.

"If you say so," he replies, baffled as to why a bunch of chickens are so important.

She nods decisively, as if that's that, then continues making her way through the grove, peering behind each branch.

"When's the last time you slept?"

She waves a dismissive hand in his direction.

Curly seems stressed. He's not entirely sure what's happened, because he's been away for a couple months, but he can tell this isn't healthy. "Hey, how about this," he starts cajolingly, and she turns to stare at him. He can't tell if she's that exhausted or just annoyed with him already. "I'll go hawk and bring you a coupla replacement chickens. The islands around here've got plenty."

"Those ones'll eat something," she counters.

Yep, Curly's definitely losing it. "Yeah, like...plants," he says, waving a hand in her face. Maybe she's sleepwalking.

She smacks it away, hard. "No. Those chickens aren't supposed to be here. They'll start killing off the native chickens."

Maui pauses to stare at her. "What?" Did Heihei start some...some chicken war of dominance these past two months?

"You can't just -" she starts to explains, then flaps another hand at him and keeps making her way through the clearing. "Never mind."

That's it. Curly's just no fun to argue with when she's too tired to form a coherent argument. Definitely sleepytime for overactive Chiefs. "Alright," Maui says, more to himself than to Moana. "Time for sleep."

"Maui, I have to find those chickens."

"Sure, and you can." He holds out his hand, jerking his head toward the light of Motunui. "Tomorrow."

"I have other stuff to do tomorrow."

"Uh-huh. Tell me that again when you're sitting in front of your nice, comfortable bed." When she crosses her arms and glares at his palm-offering, he sighs and rescinds it. "Y'know, the one all wrapped in blankets, with pillows. And a whole entire ceiling for blocking out the starlight for when people are supposed to be sleeping."

"I'm the Chief, I have a responsibility to take care of my people -"

"That includes you, Moana. You're the one always talking about how Chiefs aren't above their people - yelling about it, actually, whenever Laki pisses you off - so for the sake of consistency if nothing else, Curly, it's naptime."

"That's different," she protests weakly. "Laki's just a terrible Chief. He needs to see himself as one of his people. I need to - I have to take care of mine."

Maui rolls his eyes and takes Moana by the shoulders. "Look, Curly, you're too tired to form a coherent argument. If you really want to, stay up late tomorrow lookin' for them."

"My argument was coherent."

"Was not." Actually, it was pretty well-articulated for someone who looks like they've got sand crusted in their eyelids, but he's not about to admit that. "Everything you said will make much less sense in the morning. Trust me, Curly."

She frowns at him, yawns, and resorts to glaring.

"Hawk?" he offers, sensing a waver in her resolve.

Moana shoots him one last halfhearted glare. Just for show. Then, still hardly suppressing a jaw-cracking yawn, she nods.

A flash of his fishhook, and he wiggles out his wings happily. "C'mon!" he crows – ha, crows – and she smiles a bit as she hops lightly on his back.

It's only when he's high above Motunui, Moana dozing on his back, that Maui realizes he isn't entirely sure which fale is Moana's. The tallest one - excluding the fale tele, of course, he's spent more than enough time in dozens of structures like it regaling children with tales of his own marvelous exploits to know she doesn't sleep there (unless she just passes out doing boring Chiefly things, and then he's gotta carry her to her own tent) - that one should be hers, right?

This would be so much easier if Moana actually slept. Ever since he made the first mistake of telling her that wayfinders don't sleep, she'd seemed to take it as a personal challenge. Whether actually wayfinding or dealing with the details of being Chief, Moana is, well, quite bad at sleeping enough. He kinda regrets telling her that in the first place, back when he'd known her for about six days. In his defense, though, six days is a short time, even to mortals.

He descends smoothly to the ground. As a jarring counterpoint to his own grace, Moana practically stumbles off his back, looking exhausted. "Night, Maui."

"I don't wanna see you awake for at least four hours."

He receives a slurred half-phrase in response that could either be go bury your head in a coconut or thank you so much for looking after me, Maui.

He's gonna pretend it was the latter.

It's that murky time of morning, that one where the sun hasn't yet risen enough to gray out the stars, when Maui finds Heihei and an entire flock of chickens strutting absently along the south side of the island.