11. It's Not Flirting!

"What do you mean you have to go back?" Moana asked Maui in disbelief.

"I have to go back, and you gotta stay here." Maui said and looked down at mini Maui who nodded.

"Well how can you get back?" Moana asked. "Because where we are from is miles from here!"

"The ocean is taking me back." Maui said gesturing to the wave that appeared. "So I must leave you here."

"But I want to go back too!" Moana protested. Maui glanced at the wave who shook his head.

"I cannot risk the life of the chief, and the heroine who saved the world. So I am leaving you hear and under the care of someone." Maui said and flashed her a grin. "You two might get along pretty well and grow close."

"I'm not ten years old for you to place me under the care of someone! I'm almost twenty-one!" Moana protested. "And who the heck did you trick into caring for me?"

"I tricked no one, I may be a trickster but I am not that mean to do that." Maui answered. "I simply asked them, and they said yes. As insaid, you two will probably grow close by the time I come back."

"So who is this person you 'did not trick' into looking after me?" Moana asked, already dreading the answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Mead Hall~

"Okay you aren't smiling, something must be wrong." Eret said as he placed a plate of cooked fish in front of Moana.

"You know what is wrong." She snapped. "Maui won't let me go back home and he left me with you to be babysat!"

"Hey I'm not that bad of company am I?" Eret asked, putting a hand on his chest and pretended to look wounded. "Oh what have I done to make the island princess angry?"

"You're not even being close to being funny right now." Moana muttered as Eret resumed his normal posture. "And for the millionth time, I am not a princess. I am technically a chief."

"Just trying to cheer you up Moana, and besides he has a good reason to leave you here." Eret said sitting down next to her and placed a hand on top of hers. "Maui doesn't want anything to happen to you, think of how upset your parents would be."

"I seriously doubt anything bad would happen to me." Moana said pulling her hand from Eret and looked away. "But I want to go home, I miss my family very much."

"I miss my family too, but I don't think they'd like me after abandoning Drago and take up dragon riding." Eret said and chuckled. "My father especially, we've been dragon trappers for five generations and I just broke it in one day."

"I'm not sure how many generations my family went without exploring the ocean, but it took me a long time just to break it. And everyone was pretty happy afterwards." Moana said and then got an idea. She started twisting a strand of her curly hair around one finger and leaned forward towards Eret. "But you never know, maybe if you visited your family they'd be pretty happy that you befriended a dragon and followed a more safer path."

"If you're trying to flirt with me and try getting me to leaving Berk and taking you with me, it's not gonna work." Eret said leaning away from her. "And you better stop that before your finger gets stuck in your hair."

Moana's eyes widened in alarm. She had been flirting?! She only used that tone a few times with Maui to convince him to do something with her, but she never thought of it as flirting!

"I was not flirting!" She shot back, yanking her finger out of her hair before realizing it was stuck. "That was not flirting!"

"See what did I tell you? Listen to me and you'll live longer." Eret said attempting to stifle his laughter and helped her free her finger.

"You are being just as bad as Maui!" Moana snapped and socked his shoulder, causing Eret to laugh more. "Quit laughing!"

"People are staring so tone it down." Eret said trying to compose himself as Moana sunk back down in her seat. "If that wasn't 'flirting' as you put it, what do you call using a sweet tone and giving me that look with those big brown eyes of yours?"

"It's not flirting, I don't know how to flirt..." Moana muttered and looked away. "I used that tone on Maui a few times but it was not to flirt. It works on him to do some stuff."

"You don't know how to flirt do you?" Eret asked and gave her a sympathetic look which she returned with a glare. "Hey not everyone is good at it, look at Snotlout!"

"Oh I bet you can't even flirt to save your life." Moana scoffed.

"Oh I can flirt and it's helped me out a lot, princess." Eret said with a smirk.

"Chief, not princess." Moana corrected him. "I've seen boys flirt with me and it never works. I'd like to see you try and flirt with me, hupo(*1)."

"Fine then, don't blame me if you fall in love with my cocky charm." Eret teased.

"Lolo kanapapiki (*2), I know how to resist that." Moana retorted with a smirk.

"What are they doing?" Snotlout asked Fishlegs as he kept his attention on their two new dragon riders.

"Talking, what else?" Fishlegs answered, looking up from his meal to see Moana and Eret talking. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Oh yes there is something wrong with that!" Snotlout said sending his friend a glare.

"Oh already over my sister huh?" Tuffnut asked as he and his sister saw down at the table.

"You are sounding like Maui, Snotlout. Besides it's not like he's gonna do anything bad by talking to her." Ruffnut pointed out. "Moana did say she's not interested in anyone so I'm cool with her talking to Eret as long as there is no flirting between them."

The gang heard the sound of a bench fall and looked over to their two friends. Moana  had suddenly stood up and smack Eret right across the face with her hand before storming away.

"And that's definitely not good." Tuffnut added. "Because after Maui left I thought those two were gonna bond pretty well but now I'm not so sure."

"Guess that means the real ladies man has to step in and save the day." Snotlout said puffing out his chest proudly.

"After the number of times she's shot down your bad flirting she won't be swooning over you anytime soon." Ruffnut said shaking her head before taking another sip of her soup. "He's gonna go and apologize to her before-"

There was another sound of a slap and a yelp of pain. The gang turned their heads to see Eret on the floor and holding his crotch as Moana was spewing words in an unknown language before she stormed up to Astrid and pulled her out of the Mead Hall

"Well that went well." Tuffnut deadpanned.

"I'm gonna go help him, come on Tuff." Ruffnut said pushing her seat from the table and hurrying over to Eret with Tuffnut close behind her.

Soon Eret was limping back to the table, biting his lip and grimacing in pain with both the twins supporting him on either side.

"You might wanna go to Gothi after she kicked you." Tuff said as he and his sister lowered Eret onto a bench. "Looked very painful."

"And what did you do this time?" Fishlegs asked.

"I made a bet with her." Eret said slowly and winced. "I said that if she blushed when I flirted with her she had to give me a kiss. We were testing to see if she could be affected by someone's flirting."

"And judging by the slap marks she lost, what did you tell her?" Snotlout asked.

"Not telling you." Eret said rubbing his cheek where a red handprint was already forming. "I tried apologizing to her for startling her but she was so mad she kicked me down there."

"Yeah you need to go see Gothi." Ruffnut said with a nod. "And if she dragged Astrid out and away from Hiccup she'll be staying with her for the night or until she cools off."

"So it looks like our tough little wayfinder actually can be affected by flirting." Tuffnut said and laughed. "Oh boy Maui is gonna get maaaad when he finds out you flirted and attempted to kiss his little sister."

"Tell him and I'll kick you down there so hard, you won't be able to have kids." Eret snapped and turn to Ruffnut and Snotlout. "Same for you Snotlout, and Ruffnut if you even tell Maui or give him a hint of what happened I will never talk to you again."

"I don't hear you threatening Guppylegs!" Snotlout snapped angrily."

"Because he's smart enough to keep his mouth shut about this."

"Oh gods..."

~~~~~~~~~~

Polynesian words used in this chapter:

*1: hupo, meaning idiot
*2: Lolo kanapapiki, meaning stupid son of a bitch

I might start slipping in Polynesian words or phrases into this story just for fun and will be putting the translations at the end of each chapter