( YANDERE! TWISTED WONDERLAND X ISEKAI'D! READER )
â ââê°summaryê± â You helped make a wildly successful Twisted Wonderland yandere dating sim as a joke. Now you're trapped inside it, and every bad ending that you admittedly had incomplete knowledge of, the ones that you and your friends wrote, is suddenly trying to become your reality.
note: so this is second part to my avatar recommendations cause first part was already long in my opinion so i made second! both parts will be updated LAST UPDATE:03.02.26
part i
â° â neteyam
heartstopper by @moonlitmeadow06 feelings left unsaid between the both of you are revealed when neteyam, in a jealous and feverish daze, finally decides to speak his mind.
peace of mind by @hon3y0logy Neteyam survived being shot, but that doesnât mean heâs fully recovered mentally. Luckily, he has his mate to keep him grounded.
two lost souls by @urlocalfeiner you and neteyam grew up together, attached at the hip since young and that never changed as the two of you grew older. what did change was the fact the two of you began to develop feelings for one another that simple best friends don't hold- two lost souls longing to feel the touch of the other. as everything around you changes when you travel with the sully family to seek refuge in the metkayina clan, you and neteyam's feelings for each other don't- they grow to be unbearable, until everything comes to the surface.
come here by @dasvidny4 neteyam, determined to earn forgiveness, showers you with kisses.
sick of waiting by @meluwinne neteyam had been told to wait his entire life, by his father, his mother and even by his siblings. patience was undoubtedly his most trained quality. however, when he notices the advances by ao'nung for your hand, he can't help but throw that quality away.
borrowed blue by @fleurlia or in which. nothing you had was ever truly yours, not your body, your health, your mind, nearly your soul. all you wanted was to feel like yourself, but you were still trying to find her. what you found instead was Neteyam, the future Olo'eyktan of the people you were fighting. and even though you knew how badly this could end, you saw him. and he saw you too. not the borrowed blue, only you.
â° â aonung
seasalt and kisses by @lorre-verie you and Ao'nung are childhood friends but not really. his jealousy is most clear when you hangout with Lo'ak at the festival of the Tide's Blessing.
slowburn by @chromemolars
xxx by @itzj4ylene while youâre still learning how to belong in the reef, aonung drags you to a hidden coral spot and accidentally catches feelings.
courting rituals by @nyctophicbtch
hair fixing by @zynavatar after going for a swim, you help ao'nung fix his hair after diving into tides
unashamed by @swimthroughstars y/n doesn't want her relationship to be a secret anymore, but how will Aonung react to this?
xxx by @httpjrnl
a calm state by @mariposayl Her stubbornness pushed her too far, nearly drowning her, yet it forged an unbreakable bond with her savior, Ao'nung.
true by @sfgacy Roa, the girl with the odd hands who can heal. a hands made of herbs that can heal wounds quickly found ao'nung who was dripping blood on his arms. she has to help him.
what more can i say by @spiderfunkz ao'nung has been goodâ behaving to say the least. so when another conflict occurred you had to defend your mate as best as you can
you get me so high by @spiderfunkz you've hated ao'nung your entire life, so why change now?
right side of my neck by @spiderfunkz you looked back at ao'nung once, but he looked back two times
stupid fish boy by @m6cabre
daydreaming by @spiderfunkz after a certain interaction with the metkayina boy, you couldn't help but daydream
â° â loak
alone time by @chromemolars alone time with your lover after a long day of healer lessons under your tsahik.
you jump i follow by @lorre-verie
â° â solek
worthy of you by @mydearneteyam after a long time, it seems that eywa has allowed the same children who chased away your suitors to give the warrior you once knew a chance.
â° â tsutey
tsuâtey te rongloa ateyitan by @chromemolars a reader who loves her ikran more than life itself.
new beginnings, same nostalgia by @tootstoots your new life on pandora is good, more demanding but still good. the nature is magnificent and the people interesting. but a part of you still misses the place that you once called home.
-you and jake have been best friends for years much to the displeasure of everyone who has ever been around you two. Even in your new lives you both remain insufferable.
word count: 2.4k
warnings: body shaming (jake calls reader 'tubby' once, they both call each other ugly)
a/n: this was supposed to be a small drabble but then i unfortunately started writing expositionâŠ
You knew from the second you laid eyes on him, when he walked into the barracks with all that young bull swagger and an annoying smirk, that he was someone that would get on your nerves.
You weren't wrong. You just never expected that his sully charm would reel you in regardless.
You quickly became inseparable assholes together. You two were practically joined at the hip, eating side by side in the canteen every single day, and periodically landing yourselves in trouble with your childish arguments which often lead to toilet scrubbing and endless pushups. There was a time when you both had goofed off a little too much which led to the whole team having to clean the barracks with nothing but toothbrushes. Everyone hated you both for that.
When you first met Tommy, he joked that you were more Jake's twin that him.
"Maybe we were switched at birth" he had laughed.
Unfornately, unlike Jake who quickly fell into the disciplined marine life, following orders was never your strong suite. You often talked back to superiors, unable to withstand what you viewed to be unfair treatment. It was never your dream to join the miltary, you were just following the path that was expected of you. So it was no surprise to anyone when you had been discharged within the year for your inability to adapt.
Graciously, Tommy had taken you under his wing, introducing you to the avatar training program when you had nothing and no one to fall back onto. You never considered yourself someone who had an interest in space but there was something about pandora that callled to you. You had trained more rigourously for this than for anything you ever had before, spending sleepless night studying na'vi and reading most of grace augustines books detailing flora and fauna.
You and Jake kept in touch throughout. you wrote letters back and forth where he would tease you for being a science puke now. Your bond was still strong even when life got busy.
And when Jake was discharged after losing his legs, you did your best to be there for him, trying to keep some sense of normalcy in his life. You never tiptoed around him. Something he would later tell you he appreciated. You never treated him like he was a broken man. Because even under all the grief and the lack of legs, he was still just plain old Jake Sully.
After Tommy's death, you both had somehow gotten impossibly closer.
Life on Pandora with Jake had reminded you of your early days together where you both were nothing but a headache for everyone around.
Grace had looked you both over that first time and clutched her head as if just the sight of you both was enough to bring on tension aches. You remebered how she turned away, arguing about how she didn't need reckless marines. You atleast had the log hours to prove some worth.
She had little patient for Jake, let alone the both of you together, especially when you riled each other up with playful jabs and petty squables. There were times where Jake would jump you while in his avatar, taking full advatange of his newfound strenght. Your miltary training would kick in and you reciprocated tenfold.
Grace had threatened to send you both back to earth.
During your first mission together, you shouldn't have been surprised that Jake had mangaed to separate you both from the groupâhe had always been recklessâand then got you captured by the omatikaya. In that time you both became students under the chief's daughter and the future leader, Neytiri and Tsu'tey, much to their chagrin.
You would not describe them as patient teachers. Not at first at least. Neytiri was aggressive. Quick to annoy. She would often insult both you and Jake and would smack him when he did something wrong. But under all that irritation was a girl skilled in her ways of life. Despite her initial protests, Neytiri never skipped a day of lessons. She taught you like you were children now learning to live in your body. In a sense you were. And while you had more experience in your avatar than Jake, you still struggled at times. She never went beyond what you were ready for. She remained steady and reliable. And soon she became a friend.
Tsu'tey was a different story. He was hardened and set in his ways. A stubborn man who once he made up his mind was hard to shake. From the second he laid eyes on you two he decided you both were better off dead. That you were nothing but a threat to the forest and it's people. He was more unforgiving in his training. He fought like you were a supposed to know every step and when to dodge. He hissed insults every chance he got. When you stumbled, when your feet land wrong, when your breathing was too loud.
He reminded you too much of the sergeants during your training days. This lead to you often pushing back on his aggressiveness. You both were always at each others throats.
Eventually that tension would grow and change shape until it became something that was hard to describe. Touches became softer and words became less minced, and his patience grew with time. Not largely, just enough for you to notice.
It finally came to head after the great war.
Tsu'tey was gravely injured and had spent days in the tsahik's tent. Jake, who was already mated with Neytiri, would nudge you with a grin on his face everytime he caught you hovering over the sleeping na'vi. You refused to leave his side, too anxious at his state, even though you never admitted it out loud.
When he finally woke, you both had mated under the eye of eywa, no longer able to deny the affection that you held for each other.
Jake had teased you relentlessly the next morning. You punched him square in the chest, forcing him to double over.
Even now, a year later, your relationship hadn't changed.
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!"
Jake clawed at your hands that pulled on strands of his hair.
"Still think I'm weak?" You grunted
You and Jake had been fishing in a nearby stream, filling baskets with enough to feed the clan at dinner. When it was time to haul the fish back to the clan, you, having spent most of your time with your newborn baby boy instead of keeping up with training, had struggled with lifting one of the baskets. And Jake with all his stupidity, decided that it was a good idea to poke fun at you. "Getting a little tubby, huh?"
Not the brightest thing to say to a new mother, especially if that mother was you.
The second the comment left him, you fully dropped the basket and tackled him to the ground, resorting to petty tricks like hair pulling.
"Apologize!!" You hissed, fingers unyielding around his dreads.
Jake despite the pain in his scalp said nothing. All he let out was pained yells.
At his silence you wrapped your legs around his neck.
"Ugkâ"Jake choked. He tried the pry you off of him, digging his nails into your skin. You didn't waver. "Helâhelp!!" He cried out slapping at your calves "Someone! Anyone!" Yet no one came even as his face turned purple.
Across the trees, within clan grounds, Neytiri and Tsu'tey sat together, each with a baby strapped to their chest. Their ears twitched at the familiar voice pleading for his life but neither made a move. They remained where they were, preparing spices for tonight's meal but the yelling continued.
Tsu'tey blinked " Your mate is calling"
Neytiri adjusted the starp on her shoulder "He will be fine"
And with that, they went back to work.
As long as their idiotic mates didn't wake the babies, they did not care.
"Tsaya" you cooed at your baby boy. He wiggled on his back, tiny arms reaching for you.
Next to you was Jake, who was bouncing a whiny Neteyam.
You glanced at him out the corner of your eye "You're doing it wrong"
"What?" He turned to you, hand on Neteyam's head "No, i'm not"
You just raised your brows with pursed lips and went back playing with a laughing Tsaya.
Jake stared at you, fighting the urge to give in and ask. He failed.
"What could I possibly be doing wrong?" He said with an attitude more suited to an angsty teenage girl.
"Oh so now you want my help?"
"Just tell me"
You hummed "I don't know. You were kinda rude. Maybe if you said please.."
He deadpanned. "Nevermind"
But Neteyam didn't stop fussing.
You rolled your eyes and sighed. "You are too aggressive Sully. Sway, don't bounce like a maniac. Have you learned anything from Beytiri"
He scoffed but listened anyway.
And finally Neteyam calmed.
Wventually both boys were fast asleep and so you placed them in side by side baby baskets.
Jake raised a brow at you, having felt your eyes on the side of his head.
Your eyes widened, urging him for something
"What do you want?" He asked
"Seriously?" You huffed in disbelief "You are so ungrateful"
"What?
"I mean it's my bad for expecting anything from you" You turned away
"oh myâ"
You cut him off "Like, would it kill you to say thank you at least once? But I guess your ego can't handle admitting that I'm a better parent than you"
"Excuse me??"
You swiveled to face him again, hands on your hips "You heard me"
"You are not better than me. andâand I was a father longer than you were a mother" he argued
"By a few months!"
"Still counts"
" At least I can get a baby to stop crying" Your tail whipped at his leg.
"Oh please, Tsaya cries more than Neteyam. Probably 'cause he has to see your face everyday" He caught your tail and tugged sharply.
Before you knew it, you both were rolling around on the floor like two wild animals.
"Tiyawnâ"
Tsu'tey was cut off by the sight of Jake trapping you in a headlock.
He suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion roll over his body as he stood in the kelku opening.
He glanced back, deciding whether to leave you both or to drag you apart. He choose to separate you two when he saw you open your jaw wide, no doubt with the intention of biting the skin off of Jake's forearm. His resulting yell would surely wake the babies.
"That is enough." He said firmly as if scolding children. It was only then did you two notice his presence. You both blinked at him stupidly. He sighed, stepping forward and physically yanking you from Jake's grip.
"Must you two always act like children?"
Jake got up, dusting himself off. You, whose arm was still gripped by Tsu'teys hand, looked up. It was a face Tsu'tey had seen countless times since meeting you. It was not a look of shame, but rather one that told him you were going defend yourself regardless of what the truth was.
"It's his fault" Your arm shot out in Jake's direction. Jake's jaw dropped at your audacity. "He should learn manners. Maybe then i wouldn't have teach him any"
Jake scoffed "That's rich coming from you"
Tsu'tey's thumb and forefinger came up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "I do not care who started it. If you must behave like fools, do it away from the children"
Neither of you argued.
Neytiri gently washed Neteyam in the stream as Jake hovered next to her doing nothing but watch.
"He's always so calm when you bathe him. When I do it, I end up the one covered in water" he said
She thumbed away at a speck of dirt on Neteyam's cheek "That is because he thinks it is playtime when you do it"
"HuhâŠwell I guess it's a win he thinks i'm fun"
A laugh sounded " How'd you know his splashing isn't because he wants to get away from you?"
Jake's tail flicked.
The corner of Neytiri's mouth twitched. He saw.
"Don't encourage her" He said
"I did not say anything" Neytiri reasoned, scooping up some water and letting it fall on Neteyam's hair.
Tsu'tey called "Tiyawn, do not start. You will rile up the boys"
"What..I'm just saying" You shrugged before washing Tsaya's hair as Tsu'tey held him up.
Jake focused his attention on his son "You like papa, don't you boy?" he cooed "Yes, you do. Your aunt is just a meanie" Neteyam clapped at him. "Yes she is. and ugly too" the boy clapped again. Jake chuckled and ruffeled his hair " 'atta boy"
Then from across the stream:
"Uncle Jake is the ugliest isn't he Tsaya" the baby gurgled.
When Jake looked up you were already staring him. You both held each other's stare. No words were exchanged but invisble daggers were shot.
"Stop it you two, and make yourselves useful" Neytiri said, having enough of your ridiculous staring contest. She handed Neteyam over to Jake to dry off and the baby immediately started wiggling more than he did when Neytiri held him.
You snorted. "See?"
Neytiri, unable to help herself, let out a small laugh.
Jake looked down at Neteyam and pouted. "Everyone is against meâŠ"
In yours and Tsu'tey's kelku, he set down a now sleeping Tsaya before making his way to your shared hammock where you had already stretched out to sleep. His eyes caught the sight of a half shapened dagger leaning against the wall.
He picked it up, turning it around in his hands. It was clearly not finished but each cut was made with care and precision. Next to it sat a small bowl of blue beads.
"What is this, tiyawn" He asked, looking up at you as you rubbed your eyes.
You peeked over at him, seeing the dagger in his hands. "A gift" you yawned " 's Jake's birthday next week. He's been complaining about his old one."
Tsu'tey hummed, carefully placing the item back where he found it and crawled into the hammock. You settled into his arms, face nuzzeling into his chest. Tsu'tey smiled at the sight before closing his eyes.
Even though you and Jake were the most atrocious pairing to ever exist, it could not be denied that the bond between you was strong. Unbreakable.
Summary: When the Sully family arrives in Awaâatlu, old wounds begin to split open inside Tonowari, Ronal, and Readerâs family.
angst + comfort
Wc: 15 715 words
Taglist: @coconuthoneyandjaguars
Masterlist
Pt2
The first time the Sullys came into Awaâatlu, the village changed shape around them.
Not in any way a stranger could have named, perhaps. The woven walkways were still strung between giant mangrove roots, the platforms still alive with the rhythm of hands at work, of children racing over sun-warmed wood, of nets being mended and fish being cleaned and voices rising over the endless breathing hush of the sea. But something in the air tightened all the same. The clan did not stop moving. It only moved differently, like a body drawing a breath and holding it.
You stood beside Tonowari when they arrived, just behind and slightly to his left, where the leader of the hunting parties would stand when judgment was to be watched but not yet spoken. Salt wind dragged across your skin. Your queue lay over one shoulder. The white marks of your avatar body caught the late light faintly, and though your build had always remained closer to the forest people than the reef people around you, the years had given you the easy balance of one who belonged here. Not by birth. Not by blood. But by time, by battle, by work, and by love.
It still did not stop them from looking.
You had long since learned how to feel it before you saw it. The way glances snagged on your hands, on your narrower tail, on your shoulders, on the traces that marked you as something that had not begun on Pandora no matter how deeply you had rooted yourself into it after. Most days you could let it pass like a tide under a canoe. Most days you could remind yourself that your mates had chosen you in full sight of what you were, that Tsireyaâs laughter had first shaped itself around your name, that Aoânung had once fallen asleep on your chest with seawater still drying in his hair after training. Most days it was enough.
This was not most days.
Jake Sully stepped forward carrying exile in the line of his body. Neytiri stood beside him like a drawn blade. Their children hovered near enough to their parents to show loyalty and far enough to show strain. Even before anyone said anything, the village had already seen the tails. The hands. The faces. The traces of sky-people blood riding alongside Naâvi bone.
And because the clan had seen them, the clan had thought of you.
Ronalâs gaze slid over the newcomers slowly. She did not spit the words some might have expected. She was too controlled for that, too sharp. Her judgment was worse for being clean. Her eyes rested on each child in turn, cool and measuring, then went to Jake, then back to Neytiri, then flicked once toward you before returning to Tonowari.
âThey are very unlike usâ she said.
That was all. Nothing louder. Nothing cruder. But the thought spread exactly as if she had named it outright. You felt it move through the gathered Metkayina like current through shallow water. Not all at once. Not boldly. Just enough. Half-breed. Strange. Wrong-shaped. Sky-touched. The same old poison dressed in softer cloth.
Tonowari spoke then, giving them uturu as his mercy demanded, because war and grief had driven them there and because he was not small enough to turn away those who came seeking sanctuary. You loved him most in moments like that. His voice was steady, his judgment larger than fear. Yet even while you loved him for it, some quieter and uglier part of you noticed that he never turned to the clan and stopped the way their eyes had slid to you too. He offered protection. He did not challenge implication.
Beside the Sullys, Loâakâs face set in that stubborn, bristling way boys wore when they had been cut too many times and refused to bleed where anyone could see it. Kiri stared back with painful calm. Neteyam stood straight as a spear. Tuk all but hid herself against Neytiriâs side.
Then Tsireya came up from the water, bright and curious and open as dawn, and the moment bent in a different direction for a heartbeat. Loâak looked at her as if the sea itself had climbed out to stare back at him. You would have laughed if the tension in the air had not still been sharp enough to cut.
Aoânung and Rotxo ruined the moment almost immediately.
They did not begin at full cruelty. Boys rarely did when they were performing for a crowd. They started with the tails, with the shape of hands, with that dangerous tone that asked a question not because it wanted an answer but because it wanted permission to laugh. Tsireya told them to stop. Aoânung did not listen. His eyes had gone to the Sully children with a brightness you knew too well. Not simple meanness. Worse. The thrill of sensing where the groupâs cruelty would be safest, and stepping into it because it would make him bigger in their eyes.
You did not miss the way his glance brushed past you before he opened his mouth again.
That hurt more than it should have. It hurt because you knew where he had learned that comfort. Not from nowhere. Not from silence alone.
Still, the scene moved as it needed to. Tonowari assigned his children to help the Sully children learn the way of water. Only when Jake turned to him with the rigid, humiliated gratitude of a warrior accepting mercy with both hands did Tonowari glance toward you.
Tsireya was the one sent forward in the end.
That fit better than anything else could have. She was bright where the moment had gone brittle, open where the clan had narrowed in on itself, and young enough to step toward strangers without carrying quite so much of the adultsâ suspicion in her bones. When Tonowari told her to show the Sullys where they would stay, she went without hesitation, all kindness and curiosity, gesturing for them to follow her deeper into the village with the easy grace that seemed to live in every part of her.
The others moved with her after a brief pause. Jake remained close to Neytiri. The children hovered around their parents, tense and watchful under so many eyes. Loâak looked like he wanted to stare at everything and fight half of it at the same time. Kiri was quieter, reading the village as if it might speak back if she listened hard enough. Tuk stayed tucked close. All of them followed Tsireya across the woven walkways and root-bridges while the clan watched them go.
You stayed where you were, still beside Tonowari, your face unreadable even while your thoughts moved harder than you wanted. Ronal had not said much, but she had not needed to. The clan had heard what sat underneath her judgment all the same, and because they had heard it, they had remembered you too. You could feel it in the aftertaste of the moment, in the glances that had lingered just a fraction too long before turning away.
Tonowari waited until the nearest listeners had drifted farther off before he spoke your name.
His voice was quieter now, stripped of the public weight it had carried a moment before. You looked at him, and something in his expression made you follow when he tilted his head slightly toward one of the outer platforms. It was not secrecy, exactly. More the instinct of a leader who knew when a conversation would grow teeth if it was given to the clan to overhear.
You went with him in silence.
The platform he chose sat a little apart from the nearest cluster of walkways, close enough to the village to remain within sight and far enough to let the noise of it blur into distance. Wind rolled in off the sea, carrying salt and the faint scent of algae warmed under the late sun. Below, the water shifted around the roots in restless blue-green ribbons.
Tonowari rested one hand against the rail of woven mangrove and looked out rather than at you immediately. âI want you to teach Jake Sullyâ he said.
You did look at him then.
For a beat, all you did was stare. Not because the request made no sense. In some ways it made too much. You were one of the strongest fighters in the clan. You understood adaptation better than most. You knew what it was to enter a people not shaped like yourself and learn anyway, hard and fast and under the pressure of never being allowed the comfort of true ignorance. Still, suspicion rose in you before duty did.
âWhy me?â you asked.
Tonowari turned then, and he was too perceptive not to hear everything under the question. Not only why me because of skill. Why me when the clan has just been reminded what I am. Why me when Ronal looked at them and the people looked at me after.
His face softened, though not with pity. He had always known better than to offer you that. âBecause you are capableâ he said. âBecause you see more than what is in front of you. Because he will need someone who understands both pride and shame if he is to learn quickly.â
Your mouth tightened. âThat is not the only reason.â
âNoâ Tonowari admitted.
The honesty stopped you from hardening further.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice even more. âHe is Oloâeyktan to his family even if he stands as refugee here. If he fails, the rest will feel it. If he is isolated, he will become harder to guide. You know warriors. You know how men like him carry humiliation. AndâŠâ He paused, studying you carefully. âThere may be things in him you will understand more easily than others would.â
You held his gaze a long moment. âBecause he was one of the sky-people.â
Tonowari did not flinch from it. âYes.â
The word sat between you.
You looked away, out across the water where Tsireyaâs bright figure could just be seen leading the Sullys farther along the village edge. Jake walked near the back now, his attention shifting everywhere at once despite the discipline in his posture. Soldierâs habit. Marineâs habit, maybe, though that thought came and passed before you had fully named it.
âAnd Ronal?â you asked at last.
Tonowariâs expression changed, not with irritation but with the knowledge that there was no use pretending that piece did not matter. âRonal trusts you.â
âThat was not my question.â
His jaw flexed once. âShe will not interfere.â
You gave a short, humorless breath through your nose. âAnother answer that is not the one I asked for.â
Tonowari accepted that too. âShe does not like this burden being here at allâ he said plainly. âBut she does not doubt you. Neither do I.â
That should have eased you more than it did. Instead you found yourself searching his face for something smaller and meaner. Pity. Calculation. A hope that you would understand the Sullys because you were enough like them to make use of. Whatever he saw in your expression made his own grow steadier.
âThis is not because I see you as closer to them than to usâ he said, and now there was a firmness in him that left no room for retreat. âIt is because I know exactly where you stand. With us. With this family. With this clan. Do not insult me by thinking I have forgotten.â
The rebuke was gentle only in tone. It landed harder for that.
You looked at him properly again. There was no hesitation in him now, no uncertainty, no crack through which old fear could crawl. For a brief moment the pressure in your chest loosened.
Then duty returned in full.
âIf I do thisâ you said âI will not coddle him.â
Tonowariâs mouth twitched faintly. âI would be disappointed if you did.â
You folded your arms over your chest and stared out at the village once more. âAnd if he cannot learn?â
âThen at least he will fail honestly.â
That, more than anything, sounded like Tonowari.
Silence stretched for a few breaths. At last you nodded once. âFine.â
Tonowari let out a breath so slight most would not have caught it. You did. He had wanted this more than he had let show. âThank you.â
You shook your head. âDo not thank me yet.â
That almost drew a smile from him, but it faded before fully forming. Instead he stepped closer, slowly enough to give you time to refuse him if you wished. One of his hands came up to rest lightly at your waist, warm and familiar, and for a brief moment he only looked at you. Then he bent and kissed you.
It was soft, short, and almost unbearably gentle. No heat, no urgency, nothing that belonged to hunger more than affection. Just the quiet press of his mouth to yours, sweet with reassurance and the kind of love that had long since learned how to speak in smaller gestures. When he pulled back, he stayed close for only a heartbeat more before letting you go.
âI will send him to you after they settleâ he said.
By the time Jake found you, the sun had shifted lower and the village had settled into that restless in-between hour when work had not yet ended but the worst of the dayâs heat had broken. You were near one of the outer racks checking spear bindings, more to give your hands something useful to do than because the task truly needed doing. The sounds of Awaâatlu drifted around you in pieces: children splashing in shallows below, women calling to one another from the fish platforms, distant laughter, the low hush of water against root and wood.
You heard his steps before you turned.
Jake stopped a respectful distance away. For a moment neither of you spoke. Up close, it was easier to see what had first flashed at the edge of your notice before. The way he held his shoulders. The way he looked at space first, then movement, then exits, then finally people. The kind of stillness that was not ease but readiness worn so long it had become a second skin. He looked older than his face alone accounted for. More tired too.
He inclined his head slightly. âTonowari said Iâm with you.â
His Naâvi was serviceable, accented hard, each word carrying the weight of effort. You let him finish before answering.
âFor nowâ you said.
Something in his expression shifted, not quite amusement and not quite resignation. He had likely already learned enough in the village to know that this was your version of mercy.
You set the spear aside and faced him fully. For a moment, you let the silence sit between you, weighing him properly now that the village noise had fallen farther away.
âTonowari believes you can learnâ you said at last. âI have not decided yet.â
Jake took that without visible offense. If anything, something in his posture settled, as if bluntness was easier for him to understand than politeness.
âFair enoughâ he said.
You crossed your arms over your chest. âYou will listen the first time. You will not argue every correction like wounded pride makes you smarter. And you will not expect me to make this easy because you were Toruk Makto, Oloâeyktan, or anything else that matters somewhere other than here.â
That finally pulled the faintest shift in his expression. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation. More like recognition of a hard tone he had heard before in other places, under other chains of command.
âGot itâ he said.
You held his gaze another beat, watching for the usual signs. Swagger. Resentment. The need to prove himself immediately. Instead you found exhaustion, discipline, and something heavier buried under both.
That did not make you trust him. It only made you think he might be worth the effort.
For one strange beat, the air between you altered. Not softer. Sharper. Recognition trying on a shape before either of you trusted it enough to name. Neither of you moved first. Neither smiled. Yet some old instinct, buried under years and planets and new bodies and new loyalties, stirred its head.
You broke eye contact first because you disliked the feeling of being read.
âWalkâ you said.
Jake followed without protest. You led him down one of the narrower village paths where the platforms thinned and the sound of the central marui softened behind you. For a while you said nothing, making him keep pace over slick wood and curving roots, watching whether he looked only at where he stepped or at the full environment around him. He adapted quickly, though not gracefully. Not yet.
At last you stopped near a lower platform where the tide had come in high enough to lap against the woven supports.
âIf you are to remain hereâ you said, turning to him âyou will learn more than how to swim their way and breathe their way. You will learn when not to take up space. You will learn when pride becomes a burden for everyone around you.â
Jake absorbed that without visible offense. If anything, his gaze grew a shade more direct. âYou always start this friendly?â
âNoâ you said. âNormally I am worse.â
That did it. One corner of his mouth moved before he could stop it.
You noticed. So did he.
It vanished almost at once.
He was silent after that, and to his credit he did not push.
That, more than the recognition itself, was what made you decide he might actually be teachable.
Jake Sully learned like a man who understood that failure was no longer private.
The first few days, you gave him no softness. You made him run the shallows until his breathing turned ragged. You corrected his stance with the blunt pressure of your hand against his shoulder and the sharper crack of your voice when words failed. You showed him how to move his balance lower on the slick roots, how to enter the water without fighting it, how to watch the current rather than only the surface. You kept your explanations short in Naâvi because he needed the language in his mouth as much as the skill in his limbs. When he stumbled, you made him go again. When he swore under his breath, you pretended not to understand.
By the end of the second day, both of you knew you were pretending.
He had just surfaced from another rough dive, pushing wet hair out of his face and coughing salt from his throat, when you said, âYou are still trying to win against the water.â
Jake wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. âThat obvious, huh?â
The English snapped between you so suddenly that both of you stilled.
Then, despite everything, the corner of your mouth twitched.
âYesâ you answered in the same language. âPainfully obvious.â
He barked a laugh. It came out rougher than amused, but it was real. For the first time since arriving, some of the tightness in him loosened.
âJesusâ he muttered. âThatâs nice.â
âWhat?â
âEnglish. No offense, but my brain feels like itâs getting beat with a shovel half the time.â
You folded your arms over your chest and looked at him a long moment. âYou are doing better than you think.â
âYeah?â
âNo.â
That got a fuller laugh out of him, and there it was again, that quick flash of recognition. Not intimacy. Not anything you needed to fear. Just the strange, immediate ease of finding another person who had once stood under the same hard sun, listened to the same dead humor, worn the same kind of damage into the body until it became posture.
From the shallows, you saw Tonowari turn his head slightly from where he spoke with a group of hunters farther up the beach.
What unsettled your family was not one thing. It was accumulation.
Jake began to catch more of your English when it slipped out around frustration or instinct. Once, when he planted his foot wrong on a root slick with spray and nearly went backward into the water, you grabbed his arm and snapped âWatch your footing, soldierâ before thinking. He froze. Then he stared at you with dawning disbelief.
âNo way.â
You let go too quickly. âWhat?â
âThatâs marine. Nobody says that like that unlessââ He laughed under his breath. âYou were one too.â
You did not answer immediately. Waves lapped around your calves. Farther out, ilu rolled just under the skin of the sea like ghosts. At last you said âA long time ago.â
âStill counts.â
âNot here.â
He studied you with a little too much understanding. âYeah. I get that.â
You hated how much you liked being understood without having to pry your chest open for it. Hated, too, how dangerous that liking could look from the outside when no one else shared the language that carried it.
So you cut the moment short and sent him back underwater.
But these things added up. A phrase here. A tone there. A curse muttered in English when he swallowed too much water and came up sputtering. The half-grin you could not quite stop when he made some dry, bitter joke about command structures and impossible missions. The day you found yourself humming under your breath while sorting spears after training and he looked up from where he knelt checking a woven net.
âHold onâ he said.
You stopped.
âNoâ he said, staring. âNo way.â
Your fingers tightened on the shaft in your hand. âWhat.â
âThat song.â
You had not heard that song in years. Not truly. It was old even before Pandora, older still by the time it had crossed light-years with you in memory alone. Some fragment of Earth, half nursery-rhyme, half cheap old melody from barracks speakers and scratched recordings and a place so far gone it barely felt real anymore.
You should have denied it.
Instead you said âYou know it?â
Jake let out a disbelieving breath. Then, very softly, he sang the next line.
Your whole body went still.
It was absurd. It was stupid. It was nothing but a few words from a dead world carried unexpectedly into salt air and reef light. And yet the force of it hit you somewhere behind the ribs. Something old and buried sat up inside you all at once.
So you sang back.
Not loudly. Not beautifully. Your voice had never been built for softness. Jakeâs was worse, rough and low and frayed at the edges. But between you the melody formed anyway, pieced together from memory and laugh-broken mistakes and the sort of embarrassed amusement soldiers learned when they recognized one another being sentimental by accident.
When it ended, the silence after felt strange.
âDamnâ Jake said.
You looked away toward the horizon because your throat had gone unexpectedly tight. âYeah...â
âThat was⊠damn.â
You stayed quieter this time.
Neither of you noticed Tsireya standing farther down the beach with an armful of shells for a long few seconds. By the time you did, her expression had already smoothed itself into something easy. She came forward smiling, asking what the song had meant, asking what language it was, asking if you would teach her a little of it.
You answered gently. You always answered Tsireya gently.
But that night, when you returned to the family marui, Aoânung was sharper than usual. Ronalâs attention lingered on you too long before dropping. Tonowari asked how Jake had done, and the question was ordinary, but something under it was not.
It began with small things. Not intimacy. Not confidence. Observation.
You were the first among the Metkayina adults to acknowledge the Sully childrenâs progress without loading the praise with surprise or mockery. When Kiri held her breath longer than anyone expected, you told her so plainly. When Neteyam adapted his form in the water, you nodded once and said he learned fast. When Tuk followed Tsireya through shallow reef channels without fear, you crouched to her height and told her she was brave. And when Loâak took an ilu ride that ended ragged but stubbornly recovered, you caught him at the shore while everyone else focused on the larger lesson and told him âYou corrected quickly. That's useful here.â
He looked at you then as if he did not know what to do with approval that had no sting hidden inside it.
After that, you caught him watching you now and again. Not often. Enough.
You did not go to him at once. Boys like Loâak could smell pity the way akulas smelled blood. He would have bolted from it. So you waited. You watched how Aoânung needled him, how Neteyam shielded him when he could, how Jakeâs discipline fell hardest on him and Neytiriâs worry sharpened around him until both could sound like disappointment if a child heard them at the wrong angle. You watched how Loâak learned to grin before the next blow landed, how he bristled before anyone touched the sore place because he had learned that if he bared his teeth first people mistook it for strength.
Then came the day Aoânung and his friends crossed too far.
It played out near the waterline with enough witnesses to make it uglier. Rotxo laughed first. Aoânung followed, circling the Sully children with that loose-limbed swagger boys wore when they believed the world had already decided in their favor. Tails. Hands. Foreheads. The mockery came quick and mean. Kiriâs expression closed. Loâak stepped forward at once, ready to start the fight that had already been offered to him.
You moved before he could.
âAoânung.â
Your voice cracked across the space hard enough that every child there froze.
Your son turned. Shock hit first, then defiance. He had expected adults to ignore it. He had not expected you.
âMotherââ
âNo.â
The word came flat as stone. You crossed the sand until you stood between the two groups, not facing the Sully children at all. Facing him. Only him.
âWhat do you see when you look at them?â you asked.
Aoânung lifted his chin. Around him, Rotxo and the others went still with the instinctive caution of boys who realized too late that the game had shifted.
He said nothing.
You took one step closer. âSay it.â
His jaw tightened. âThey are not like us.â
The words struck with the force of memory because you had heard them before. Not always aloud. Not always with witnesses. But enough.
âNoâ you said. âThey are not. And yet they are under our protection. They are guests. They are children. Is this how I taught you to carry strength?â
Aoânungâs eyes flicked away for the briefest instant. Shame. Then anger, because shame rarely came alone at his age.
âThey are freaksâ one of the boys muttered from behind him, too quiet perhaps in hope of escaping notice.
You heard it anyway.
So did Loâak. So did Kiri. So did Tsireya, who had just reached the edge of the group and gone pale.
You felt the word land inside your own ribs like a thrown stone. For one terrible instant you nearly lost your hold on your face. Nearly let them all see exactly where it had struck. But you had stood through worse than a childâs cruelty, and this was not the moment to bleed.
Instead you looked at Aoânung and said, very quietly âThen what does that make me?â
Silence.
Not one child moved.
Aoânungâs eyes snapped back to yours, wide for one naked second before he forced them harder again. He had not expected that. He had not expected to be made to look directly at the bridge between what he had said and who you were.
âYou are notââ he began.
But he had no ending for it.
You spared him none.
âYou will not speak that way againâ you said. âNot of them. Not of anyone under this clanâs shelter. If you do not know how to carry your rank with honor, then you will carry nothing. Go.â
He stood frozen just long enough to reveal the child still living inside the almost-young-man shape of him. Then he turned sharply and stalked off, his friends scrambling after him in uneasy silence.
The Sully children remained where they were.
You still did not look at them immediately. Your hurt was too near the surface. You knew if you met Loâakâs eyes just then you might show too much.
When you finally turned, Neteyam looked wary. Kiri looked as if she had understood far more than you wanted her to. Tuk only seemed confused. Loâak had that same braced expression again, like he did not trust good things not to twist into something else.
So you kept it simple.
âGo with Tsireyaâ you said. âTraining is not finished.â
Tsireya stepped forward at once, relief and loyalty all over her face, gathering the others with the soft authority that came to her as naturally as tide.
Loâak lingered half a second longer.
You gave him one small nod.
He went.
Only when they were gone did you let yourself breathe.
The village slept in pieces, never fully. The sea muttered against the roots. Wind moved through hanging shells and fishbone charms with a sound like soft rattling breath. You had come out because you could not bear one more look, one more half-thought, one more silence from inside. You stood on a narrow platform over dark water and let the night keep your company while the tears you had denied yourself earlier escaped anyway, quiet and furious.
You heard him before you saw him. Young warriors always thought they moved more silently than they did.
âMother?â
You swiped at your face before turning. He saw anyway. Of course he saw. Aoânung had always been able to read your pain more quickly than Tsireya. He simply had less practice handling it.
He stood a little distance away, no longer broad with performance. Just young. Just your son. His shoulders had lost all their earlier swagger.
âI should not have said those thingsâ he said.
His voice was low, roughened by shame he clearly hated. You waited.
âI should not have let them say them eitherâ he added. âIt was wrong.â
Still you waited.
Aoânung swallowed. âI was angry.â
âAngry at children?â you asked.
âNo.â He stopped, jaw tight. âAt⊠everything.â
That at least was honest.
You looked back out over the water. Moonlight silvered the surface in broken bands. âDo you know why your words hurt?â
âYes.â
âNoâ you said. âYou know why they upset me. That is not the same.â
He flinched. Not visibly enough for a stranger. More than enough for you.
After a moment, you went on. âWhen you call them freaks, when you make their bodies into something to be mocked, you are not speaking only to them. You are speaking into a wound that existed before they arrived. A wound you have seen this clan touch in me all your life whether you named it or not.â
Aoânungâs breathing changed. Slight. Tight.
âI knowâ he said.
You turned then and finally looked at him fully. âDo you?â
His face worked with things he did not know how to say. Defensiveness. Shame. Pride. Fear. The ugly confusion of realizing that someone could love you fiercely and still be disappointed in the shape you were taking.
âI did not mean youâ he said at last, and it was the sort of thing a child said because he still believed intent could erase impact.
Your chest ached.
âI knowâ you answered softly. âBut it doesn't erase that I still am lime them.â
Tears burned again. You despised them. You let none fall this time.
Aoânung took a hesitant step forward. âI am sorry.â
This time, because it was him, because he had come on his own and because he was trying in the only way he knew how, you reached out. Your hand settled briefly against his cheek.
âI knowâ you said.
He leaned into the touch before he caught himself. The movement was small, almost involuntary, but you felt it all the same. It broke you a little more, because for all his sharpness and pride and the cruel stupidity of what he had done earlier, there was still something achingly young in the way he sought comfort before remembering he was meant to stand tall without it.
Your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his head before you could think better of it.
âAoânungâ you said softly.
That was all it took.
Whatever stiffness had been holding him upright gave way at last, and he stepped into you with none of his usual swagger left, leaning his weight against you as if he had forgotten for a moment how to keep it all inside himself. You drew him in without hesitation, wrapping both arms around him and holding him close. One hand spread broad between his shoulder blades while the other rested at the back of his head, keeping him there with a gentleness that only made the ache in your chest deepen.
He did not speak. Neither did you.
For a little while, the two of you only stayed that way in the dark, with the sea breathing quietly below and the night moving around the edges of the platform. Aoânung let himself be held in a way he would have denied wanting in daylight, all the sharp edges of him gone quiet for once. You pressed a kiss to his hairline and held him tighter for a heartbeat, as though that alone could soothe every place where disappointment had cut through both of you.
When he finally pulled back, it was slowly and with visible reluctance, his face turned partly away as if he could hide how much he had needed it.
You let him have that dignity.
He swallowed once, then straightened. âGoodnight, Momâ he said, voice rougher than before.
Your hand brushed briefly over his arm before you let him go. âGoodnight, baby.â
Only after he had disappeared back into the sleeping village did you stand there alone and let the thought come that you had been keeping away.
Aoânung had been comfortable enough to say those things because he had heard their shape before. Maybe not in those exact words. Maybe not from Tonowariâs mouth. But from the clan. From whispers. From tones. From Ronalâs colder judgments uttered when you were not near enough to answer. From silences that let implication breathe.
And if Aoânung had learned it there, if he had learned that such thoughts were sayable, then what had Tonowari and Ronal allowed to live around your children in all these years?
Worse still, what had they themselves believed and merely loved you enough never to say?
The question lodged like a hook and would not come free.
After that, Loâak became a shape at the edge of your days more often.
He did not come to confide in you. Not yet. But he began staying back when the others ran ahead. He lingered after lessons under excuses that fooled no one. Once, while Tsireya helped Tuk with a breathing exercise and Aoânung wrestled some challenge out of Rotxo farther down the reef, you found Loâak sitting alone on a low root with his feet in the water, staring out so hard at the horizon it looked like he was trying to force his thoughts into it.
You could have left him.
Instead you sat beside him without asking.
For a while neither of you spoke. Water moved around your ankles. A school of tiny fish flashed silver below. Somewhere overhead seabirds cried.
At last you said âYou glare like your father.â
Loâak snorted before he could stop himself. âThatâs not a compliment.â
âNoâ you agreed. âIt is not.â
He glanced at you sideways then, suspicious amusement mixing with caution.
You let the quiet stretch again until he settled back into it.
When you spoke next, your voice was lighter than the weight of the question. âDid you want to punch Aoânung?â
Loâak huffed. âKinda always.â
âReasonable.â
That earned you a real look. The first one not filtered through wariness.
You did not smile. Not much. Just enough.
A little of the tension left him. âYou were really pissed.â
âYes.â
âBecause he was being a skxawng.â
âYes.â
Loâak nudged water with one foot, watching the ripples. âAnd because of the other thing.â
There it was.
You turned your face toward the sea again. âYes.â
He was quiet a long while after that. Then he asked, too casual to be casual âDoes it bother you?â
You could have lied. You almost did. But something in the set of his shoulders stopped you.
âOf course it does.â you said.
Loâak looked down at his hands. Five fingers. Strong. Capable. Wrong, to some eyes. He flexed them once.
âOhâ he said.
It was such a small sound. Such a bare one. It carried more than any long confession would have.
You understood then, with a painful clarity, that no one had told him what he needed to hear. Not in a way that had sunk in. Not enough times. Not with the right weight.
So you spoke carefully, because some truths had to be laid in a boyâs hands like knives turned hilt-first.
âListen to me, Loâak. The shape of your body does not lessen you. Not your hands. Not your tail. Not your face. Not any piece of you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make themselves feel pure by cutting someone else smaller. That is not truth. That is cowardice.â
He stared straight ahead. You were not certain he was breathing.
âYou are Naâviâ you went on. âYou are your fatherâs son and your motherâs son. You are yourself beyond both of them. You do not have to earn personhood from people who look at you and see only what is different. Do you understand me?â
Loâakâs throat moved.
âMaybeâ he muttered.
âThen I will say it again another day.â
That made his mouth twitch a little. Not quite a smile. Near enough.
And because he was still a boy, because the ache in him had not erased the impulse to test, he said âYou really think Iâm perfect?â
âNobody isâ you said at once.
His head whipped toward you, offended.
You let him stew half a second before adding âYou are loud, impulsive, and you make decisions like someone throwing knives blind in the dark. But none of that has anything to do with the body you were born into.â
Loâak barked a laugh so sudden it startled both of you.
You joined him. Very briefly.
From then on, he sought you more.
Not always alone. Sometimes he just drifted toward wherever you were helping set lines or checking spears or returning from a hunt, offering clumsy help he would never have offered before. Sometimes you found him with Tsireya and Tuk, and he was easy there, gentler. Sometimes he caught you between duties and asked sharp questions about fighting, or hunting, or how long it had taken you to feel like you belonged in reef water. Sometimes he said nothing at all, only sat near enough that the silence became company.
The Sullys noticed. So did your family.
Jake and Neytiri, to their credit, did not pry. You saw the awareness in Jakeâs eyes, the cautious gratitude in the way he sometimes let Loâak drift toward you without calling him back. Neytiri watched too, more guarded, but she recognized help when she saw it. She simply did not know its shape.
Your own family did not have that grace.
Tsireyaâs jealousy came first and hurt the least. She grew clingier in small ways, touching your arm more often, leaning against you when she spoke, asking if you would braid shells into her hair that evening or come see some little thing she had found in the tide pools. It was not suspicion. It was fear of displacement. You answered it at once, gathering her close whenever you returned home, pressing kisses to her forehead, telling her stories while you worked her braids loose and redid them, letting her fall asleep with her head in your lap when the nights grew longer.
Aoânungâs came in the form of watchfulness. He did not mention Loâak directly. He simply observed too much and went sharp around the edges whenever he found you speaking to the Sully boy alone. Shame still sat between the two of you after his apology, not healed, only softened over. That made everything worse.
Tonowari and Ronal felt different.
They held it in. They trusted you, and because they trusted you they hated the feeling all the more. You could see it in what they did not say. Tonowari lingering longer after evening meals, listening when you spoke of training but not asking the questions beneath his quiet. Ronal watching your face when Jakeâs name came up and then turning away before the glance could become accusation. Their discomfort did not come from believing you unfaithful. Not yet. It came from seeing parts of you open in ways they had never been invited into.
That was what jealousy often was at its core. Not fear of replacement. Fear of exclusion.
You began hearing things you had never let yourself fully hear before. A pause in conversation when you approached. A woman on a fish platform lowering her voice just a breath too late. A boy saying something under his breath about sky-blood and getting hissed into silence by his sister. None of it new, perhaps. Only newly impossible to ignore once Aoânung had put shape to it in front of you.
And Ronal, for all the love between you, did not help.
She was not careless with you. Never that. In private she touched you with certainty, trusted your judgment in battle, shared the weight of the children and the home and the clanâs expectations. But she had always kept a harder core than Tonowari, and in moments where the Sullys were discussed her words carried enough old disdain to stir every insecurity you had spent years trying to bury. She did not call them demons. She did not need to. A tone could do the work. A look. A certain refusal to separate strangeness from contamination.
Each time, you said nothing.
Each time, something in you bent a little further.
Then came the day you learned she had spoken more plainly when you were not there.
Not from Tonowari. Not from some dramatic confrontation. From chance. From walking behind a half-screened section of woven wall and hearing the tail end of a conversation between Ronal and two women who had come seeking her counsel. You only caught enough to understand. The Sully children. Their bodies. Their blood. The risk of letting too much of the sky-people remain in the heart of the clan. Ronalâs voice cool and unsparing. Not once your name spoken, but you heard yourself in every omission.
You left before they saw you.
That night you could not eat.
When Tonowari asked what was wrong, you said you were tired. Ronal looked at you too long and said nothing. Aoânung picked at his meal. Tsireya chatted about some little thing from the reef until even she felt the heaviness and fell quiet.
You slept badly. When morning came, you threw yourself harder into your duties.
That was the cruel part. The worst fights often did.
You had spent half the day with the hunting parties and the latter part of the afternoon checking on the younger trainees. By the time you returned to the marui, salt dried tight over your skin and exhaustion sat meanly in your bones. The family meal was nearly ready. Tsireya was helping set woven plates in place. Aoânung was cleaning a spearhead with too much force. Tonowari sat mending something with hands that only looked calm. Ronal had her back partly to you, sorting herbs and shells for medicines, her profile sharp in the slanting gold light.
You entered and the shift in the marui was immediate, small but noticeable all the same. Tsireya brightened first, coming to you at once, and you kissed her forehead as naturally as breathing. Your hand rested briefly on Aoânungâs shoulder as you passed, even though he did not look up, his attention fixed too carefully on the spearhead in his hands.
Tonowariâs eyes found you next.
He was seated near the center of the space, broad shoulders slightly bowed over the piece of mending in his hands, but the moment he saw you he straightened a little. Not enough to make it obvious. Just enough that you caught it. His gaze moved over your face in one quick, quiet check, as though measuring your tiredness, your mood, the weight you had brought back in with you from the day. When you paused near him, he reached out and let his fingers brush lightly over your wrist. It was a small touch, gone almost as soon as it happened, but it carried the kind of familiar care that long years built into instinct.
âYou are lateâ he said.
There was no reprimand in it. Only notice.
âWork took longerâ you answered.
Tonowari gave a low hum and let his hand fall away, though not before his thumb brushed once against your skin. âSit when you are done. You have not rested enough these past days.â
Before you could answer, Ronal looked up from where she sat sorting herbs and shells into neat little groupings by her side.
Her expression was harder to read, as it often was when others were near, but you knew her too well not to catch the brief pause in her hands when you stepped fully into the marui. She looked at you for a moment longer than necessary, her gaze moving over the damp salt dried into your skin, the tension still holding across your shoulders, the faint exhaustion under your eyes. Then she clicked her tongue softly, almost under her breath.
âYou pushed too far again" she said.
The words should have sounded sharp. From anyone else, they would have. From Ronal, they carried that familiar edge of concern dressed in sternness, the shape it most often took when she did not want to soften herself in front of the children.
You exhaled through your nose, too tired to fight the gesture for what it was. âI am still standing.â
âYes, Ronal said, dry and unimpressed. âAnd you think that is always the same as being well.â
Tsireya hid a smile at that, clearly having heard the argument before.
For the briefest moment, your eyes met Ronalâs properly. Something quiet passed there. Not tenderness made obvious. Never that, not in front of everyone. But something steady and known, something that had lived in the spaces between the three of you for too long to need much dressing.
You shook your head faintly, more to yourself than to either of them, and moved at last to wash.
Instead Ronal said, without turning âLoâak was looking for you again.â
The words were ordinary. The tone was not.
You stilled with water running over your fingers.
âI saw himâ you said.
âMm.â
That sound. Small. Dismissive. Heavy with all the things left unsaid.
You dried your hands slowly and faced her. âIf you wish to say something, say it.â
Tsireya froze. Aoânungâs head lifted. Tonowariâs hands went still over the mending in his lap.
Ronal turned then. Her face was controlled, but not enough. âYou spend much time with him.â
âHe needed guidance.â
âHe has parents.â
The words landed harder than they should have because you had given your life to children who were not of your body and never once resented it. Because you knew exactly where your deepest insecurity lived. Because Ronal knew it too.
âSo do oursâ you replied, voice already sharpening. âYet that has never stopped me from raising them.â
Tonowari looked up fast. âEnough.â
âNoâ you said without taking your eyes off Ronal.
Ronal set down the herbs in her hands one by one with terrifying care. âThe clan sees. The people speak.â
âAnd you listen.â
Her nostrils flared. âI am TsahĂŹk. I hear what moves through my people.â
âYou let it move.â
âThat is not the same.â
âNo?â Your laugh came sharp and ugly. âThen tell me, Ronal, when they look at the Sully children and see something tainted, something wrong-shaped, something less, do you think I do not know what else they are seeing in that moment?â
Tonowari stood. âY/nââ
âDO NOT.â You barely spared him a glance.
The words came out so loud and raw that the whole marui seemed to freeze around them.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. No one even breathed properly. It was not only the force of it. It was the fact that none of them could remember the last time they had heard you scream at all, much less heard it turned on one of them. Not Tonowari. Not Ronal. Not the children. You were not gentle by nature, not always soft, but this was different. This was something torn straight out of the center of you, stripped of discipline and pride and every careful restraint you usually kept wrapped tight around your hurt.
Silence crashed into the marui so hard even the sea beyond seemed to retreat.
Ronalâs chin lifted higher. Hurt had reached her now, and pride arrived right behind it. âYou are twisting this.â
âAm I?â Your voice rose. âAoânung did not learn those thoughts from water and wind. He learned them here. In this clan. In this home. In the things said when I am not present and the things not challenged when I am.â
Aoânung jerked upright. âMotherââ
âBe silent.â
The words cracked out of you with a force that seemed to stun even yourself.
Aoânung went still at once. So did everyone else. It was not simply that you had snapped at him. It was that none of them were used to this version of your anger, this loud, shaking, barely-contained thing that tore out of you without the usual control wrapped around it. You could be stern. You could be sharp. But this was different, and the shock of hearing it turned on him kept Aoânung rooted where he stood.
Ronalâs eyes flashed. âYou accuse me of turning my son against you?â
âI accuse you of feeding him poison and calling it caution.â
Tsireya made a strangled sound. Tonowari stepped between you by instinct, but you moved sideways before he could block the line of the fight.
The words struck. Not because they were true in the way she meant. Because some part of them touched something real.
Your face twisted, more wounded than angry for one naked second.
âNever offered you?â you shot back. âYou speak as though you ever reached for them.â
Ronal went still.
You laughed once, harsh and shaking. âDo you know how many times either of you asked about where I came from? About the life before this one? About the language still living in my mouth? About the things I lost?â Your voice rose again, raw with old hurt now, with something far older than the Sullys and this argument and even the clanâs whispers. âYou accepted that those parts of me existed, yes, but you never wanted to stand too close to them. Never wanted to know them unless they could be made useful, or small, or easy to set aside.â
Tonowariâs expression changed at that, guilt flashing through it before he could hide it.
You did not spare him either.
âI did not hide those pieces because I wished to keep you out,â you said, voice breaking around the force of it. âI kept them quiet because no one asked. Because no one looked at those wounds and wondered what they were made of.â
The silence that followed hurt worse than shouting.
You had kept those fragments hidden. Not maliciously. Not knowingly. But because pain went silent when no one around you shared its language and because the ones who claimed to love you had never truly learned how to ask for it.
âYou think I would betray you for friendship?â you asked, voice trembling now with fury.
âI thinkâ Ronal snapped, and now she was shouting too âthat demons return to their own. I think perhaps you feel the pull of sameness and do not know it. I think perhaps that is why you go so often where you are reflected.â
Everything in you went cold.
Tonowari moved at once. âRonal.â
But she was too far inside the blow already. You saw regret hit her only after the words were gone.
You stared at her. âDo you see me only as a demon, then?â
Ronal was breathing hard. Wounded pride, jealousy, fear, and years of buried prejudice had tangled too tightly to unwind cleanly. In that moment she chose anger because anger felt stronger than retreat.
âYesâ she said, in a voice that shook. âIn this, yes. What else calls a mated woman away so often if not the demon in her? What else lets her laugh and sing and hide herself with another male as though the bond of her family is not enough?â
Tsireya began to cry.
The sound barely reached you. Your ears were roaring.
You stepped forward so fast Tonowari actually reached out to catch your arm and missed. âYou dareâ you said, each word raw. âYou dare accuse me of cheating while standing in the home I built with my own hands. While speaking to the children I fed, bathed, taught, held. While wearing medicines I gathered and skins I cured and weapons I sharpened. You dare call me demon after I gave you every piece of my fucking life?!â
Ronalâs face crumpled for a heartbeat under the force of it, but you were beyond mercy now.
âYou put those thoughts into Aoânungâs mouthâ you went on, voice breaking louder. âDo not deny it. He did not invent that cruelty. He learned from the contempt you carry when you think I am not looking.â
âI was protecting this family!â Ronal shouted back.
âBy teaching our son to despise people like me?â
Aoânung surged to his feet then, shaking with his own helpless rage and terror, too young and too proud and too frightened for either of you.
âStop talking to her like that!â
You turned on him in disbelief. âTo her?â
His chest rose and fell fast. âShe is my mother.â
The words hung. Not wrong. Not enough.
Pain and fury made you crueler than you meant to be. âAnd I am what, then?â
Aoânungâs face twisted. For a second you saw him realize the cliff edge. He stepped anyway.
âYou are not even my true motherâ he spat. âYou are not my real parent.â
The world stopped.
There were sounds after. Tsireya sobbing. Tonowari barking Aoânungâs name in horror. Ronalâs sharp inhale like she had been stabbed. But all of it came from very far away. What you heard most clearly was the split inside your chest. Clean. Final. A thing tearing where you had thought it had grown too strong to tear.
Tonowari crossed to you quickly, hands half raised. âY/n, listen to meââ
âNo.â You reeled back from him too. âNO. NOT ONE OF YOU.â
Tsireya ran forward then and you almost broke on the sight of her, but you could not stay. Could not breathe inside that marui another second.
You snatched up the nearest things that were yours. A wrap. A knife. Your bow. A small satchel hanging from a peg by the entrance. Tonowari called your name. Ronal did too, and hers sounded ruined now, but you could not hear anything except the echo of demon and not my true mother and the older, deeper voice inside yourself whispering the worst of all.
You could not even give them children.
Perhaps that was what had always sat beneath it. The old failure. The body that had crossed worlds and changed shape and still would not do this one thing the clan understood without question. You had told yourself for years it did not matter, because Tsireya and Aoânung were yours in every way that counted. But pain was a scavenger. It dragged up every buried bone when called.
You fled before you screamed.
You climbed until your hands bled.
Not badly. Just enough for the sting to keep you in your body when grief wanted to blast you out of it. You left the clustered marui of the village behind, crossed a tangle of roots and tide-cut stone, and found one of the old trees farther inland where mangrove gave way to the slightly drier edges of forest. There, high above ground and water both, you wedged yourself into the cradle of thick branches and finally let the collapse come.
It was not graceful. It was not quiet.
You cried until your chest cramped and your throat felt flayed raw. You hit the trunk once with the heel of your hand hard enough to bruise. You cursed in English because Naâvi felt too sacred for the ugliness in you and because no one was there to hear Earthâs dead language anyway. Then you curled in on yourself with your forehead pressed to bark and shook like something hunted.
You thought of Aoânung as a small child reaching for you from Ronalâs arms the first time he had chosen to come to you without prompting. You thought of Tsireya feverish and half asleep, her fingers tangled in your braid while you sat up all night cooling her skin with damp cloths. You thought of Tonowari holding you after hunts gone bad, of Ronalâs mouth at your shoulder in the dark, of every year you had given to this family, this place, this life built on the bones of another.
Then you thought of the clanâs eyes on you when the Sullys arrived. Of Ronal saying unlike us. Of whispers. Of silences. Of Tonowari never quite cutting them off. Of every time you had chosen gratitude over fury because love seemed more important than being right.
The night gave you too much room to think. Sleep would not hold for long, and every time you drifted close to it your mind kicked you back awake with something sharper waiting. So you lay there in the cradle of branches staring through gaps in the leaves at scraps of dark sky and let yourself wander somewhere crueler.
Your thoughts found Loâak because of course they did. Not just Loâak as he was now, all sharp edges and stubborn pride and hurt packed into the shape of a boy trying not to show where the world had bruised him, but Loâak as he had been when he was smaller, when his hands had still looked too big for the rest of him and his ears and brows and fingers had marked him out before he could even understand why people were staring. You thought of the way eyes lingered. The way silence changed texture around him. The way even kindness could turn ugly when it carried pity underneath.
And then, against your own will, your mind made the leap. If you had ever carried a child of your own here, if Eywa or fate or whatever force ruled these things had ever placed that life in your arms, would they have looked like that too. Would they have had your blood written into them in all the ways this world knew how to notice and punish. Five fingers. Strange bone structure. Some soft human wrongness visible beneath Naâvi skin. Something beautiful to you, maybe, because it would have been yours, because it would have been theirs, because love would have made every difference sacred. But not beautiful to everyone else. Not safe.
The thought hollowed you out in a new place. Because once it came, another followed it, quieter and somehow worse. Maybe Tonowari and Ronal had known. Maybe not in words, not in any deliberate, spoken way, but somewhere deep and practical and afraid. Maybe some part of them had always been relieved that no child had ever come from your body. Relieved that they had been spared the risk of loving a child the clan might look at the way they looked at Loâak. Relieved that they had been spared explaining your traits in the face of tradition, in the face of gossip, in the face of that old, ugly instinct to sort the acceptable from the strange.
You shut your eyes hard enough to see color behind them, but it did nothing. The thought kept gnawing. Not because you truly believed they would reject such a child once placed in their arms. That was what made it hurt in a different way. You knew Tonowari would have loved fiercely. You knew Ronal, for all her pride and sharpness, would have fought like a knife for anything she called hers. But love after the fact was not the same as wanting before the fact. It was possible to love deeply and still feel relief at being spared a harder road. Possible to adore you and still be grateful that you had not given them a child who would carry the most visible proof of what set you apart.
Your stomach turned. Suddenly the old grief was tangled with something meaner, more humiliating. It was one thing to wonder whether they had ever looked at you and seen difference they tolerated because they loved you. It was another to imagine they had looked at your empty hands, your empty womb, and thanked the stars in some quiet hidden corner of themselves that it had stayed that way.
You pressed the heel of your hand over your mouth to hold in the sound that wanted out. Below you, the forest breathed and shifted and remained indifferent. Somewhere distant, water moved against root and stone. You thought of Loâak again, of the set of his jaw every time he pretended he did not care, and something inside you cracked with a tenderness so painful it felt almost like guilt. Because if a child of yours had looked like him, you knew with horrible certainty that you would have loved them past language, past reason, past fear. You would have torn the world open with your bare hands before letting anyone make them feel lesser for it.
And that, perhaps, was the sharpest wound of all. That no such child had ever existed, and yet you were grieving them anyway. Grieving the possibility. Grieving the shape of a life you had never let yourself hold long enough to name. Grieving the chance that perhaps, somewhere under all this hurt, you had wanted more than you had ever admitted. Not just mates. Not just a place. Not just borrowed children who had become yours through devotion rather than blood. Something smaller and more dangerous. Someone who might have carried your difference openly into the light, forcing everyone around you to reveal exactly how much of your strangeness they could truly bear.
For a long time after that, you did not sleep at all.
That, perhaps, was the hardest part. Dawn came all golden over the water as if the world had not been split open. The village woke. Nets were lifted. Fish gutted. Children called to one another. Duties remained, indifferent to heartbreak. So did you.
You returned at first light only long enough to wash your face in cold water and tie your hair back properly. Then you went straight to your responsibilities. The hunters needed directing. Tracks from the night tides needed reading. Two younger warriors had argued over spear allocation. A net line had torn along one of the outer shallows and needed stronger hands to repair it before midday.
The clan saw you.
Of course they did. Word had already spread. You could feel it in the way voices lowered when you passed, in how no one quite dared ask anything. Their curiosity warred with the very obvious truth written in your face. So they watched instead.
Let them, you thought.
If they expected you to vanish because your heart had been broken in private, they did not know you at all.
By noon Tonowari found you near the storage platforms where dried lines and harpoons were kept. He approached alone, which was at least wise.
You did not turn when you heard him.
âY/n.â
You kept checking a spear haft for warp.
He stopped a careful distance away. âPlease.â
That made you laugh once under your breath. Not kindly. âYou ask for gentleness now?â
Tonowari absorbed the blow without flinching. âI ask for a chance to speak.â
You finally looked at him then. He wore grief openly. Guilt too. It would have moved you yesterday. Today it only hurt.
âWhere was this chanceâ you asked âwhen I needed you to stop the clan from looking at me like I was something lesser the moment the Sullys arrived? Where was it when Ronal spoke and let implication do its work? Where was it when Aoânung learned those thoughts under our roof?â
His face tightened. âYou think I don't know I have failed. I know I have.â
âThen let that knowledge keep you company.â
He stepped forward despite the warning in your posture. âI did not thinkââ
âNoâ you cut in. âYou did not. That is exactly it.â
For a second you saw anger spark in him too, not at you but at himself, at the impossibility of saying enough. Then it died. He stood there broad and wounded and unable to mend with strength what strength had failed to protect.
âI love youâ he said simply.
Pain sliced fresh through your ribs. âThen you should have protected me better.â
Where Tonowari approached like someone handling a blade, Tsireya came like she always came to you: quickly, heart first, tears already threatening. You found her near the outer shallows because she had clearly searched until someone told her where you were. The moment she saw you, she ran.
You caught her automatically. There had never been a world where you would not.
Her arms wrapped around your waist so tightly it almost hurt. You dropped to your knees in the wet sand at once to hold her properly. She was crying before she even tried to speak. You kissed her forehead again and again, smoothing damp hair back from her face, murmuring broken comforts in Naâvi and half-English endearments that survived from a life she had never known.
âNone of this is your faultâ you told her. âNone of it. Do you hear me?â
Tsireya nodded against your neck and cried harder.
You rocked her a little, because once upon a time that had been enough to calm every storm she brought to you. âYou did nothing wrong.â
âI should have said somethingâ she choked out. âI should have stopped them sooner. I saw Aoânung growing mean and I thought he would soften. I should haveââ
âNo.â You tipped her face up until she looked at you. âYou are not responsible for carrying what the adults failed to carry. Not you.â
Her mouth trembled. âCome home...â
That nearly broke you all over again.
You drew her in and held her. âI cannotâ you whispered.
âNot ever?â
Your throat closed. You made yourself answer honestly. âNot yet.â
Tsireya nodded because she was kinder than anyone deserved and because she understood even when understanding hurt. She clung to you another minute, then let you wipe her face with your thumbs as if she were still little enough to fit entirely in your lap.
The family felt your absence exactly as you knew they would.
Not because you flattered yourself irreplaceable. Because every home had a rhythm, and you had been part of theirs for too long not to leave silence where your habits belonged. No second pair of hands to catch the small work before it fell. No evening rounds through the marui checking straps, medicines, children, weapons, weatherproofing. No body dropping tired beside theirs at the end of a long day. No one to laugh first when Tsireya made some bright joke. No one to sharpen Aoânungâs practice blade after he had abused it against coral. No one to shoulder against Ronal while sorting herbs. No one to trade a quiet look with Tonowari across a crowded family meal.
Absence was never just emptiness. It was the shape of all the things that failed to happen.
Aoânung felt it hardest after the first shock passed. Shame made him restless. Restlessness made him stupid. He trained too hard, snapped too fast, and once nearly got himself clipped by a reef edge because his focus was split in six directions at once. Tonowari hauled him out and cursed him senseless for it. Aoânung took the scolding without fighting back because his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.
Ronal carried hers more inwardly. She did her work. She led. She helped heal. She moved through the village with the same proud spine and uncompromising hands. But she slept poorly, and when she thought no one watched her eyes went to doors, walkways, platforms, the outer edges of the village where you should have been appearing any minute with wet hair and sea-salt on your skin and some tired complaint ready on your mouth.
Tonowari wore his like a stone tied around the chest. He had always been large enough to contain pain without spectacle. That did not make it smaller.
It was Loâak who found you on the second evening after the fight, though not by design.
You were coming back from the outer roots with a bundle of repaired line over one shoulder and a small catch looped at your hip when you spotted him sitting alone where mangrove shadows met the darkening water. He did not hear you at first. His posture gave him away before his face did. Folded in. Guard up. Something raw fresh in him.
You almost kept walking.
Then you remembered how it felt to be left alone with hurt large enough to swallow speech.
So you went to him.
He looked up fast when your steps reached him, visibly startled, then awkward. âOh. Hey.â
You set the repaired line aside and lowered yourself onto the root beside him. âYou choose lonely places.â
He shrugged one shoulder. âGuess so.â
You studied him in profile. âWhat happened?â
âNothing.â
âMm.â
Loâak huffed. âYou do that thing.â
âWhat thing?â
âThat thing where you act like you already know Iâm full of crap.â
âI do already know.â
He gave you a sideways look. Even in the gloom you could see the fight between pride and relief.
At last he muttered âDad got on my ass again.â
âAbout?â
âEverything.â He kicked lightly at the water below. âThe ilu stuff. The diving. Aoânung. Me not thinking. Me thinking too much. Pick one.â
You listened.
âHe doesnât say Iâm messed up or anythingâ Loâak said after a moment, staring hard at the darkness. âNot like that. He just⊠with Neteyam itâs always trust and expectations and all that warrior stuff. With me itâs like heâs waiting for the next screwup.â
There was no accusation in his voice by the end. That made it sadder.
âAnd your mother?â you asked.
Loâak shrugged again. âMom loves me. She justâŠâ He grimaced. âShe just doesn't say he isn't right.â
You sat with that.
After a while you said âWhen people are afraid for someone, they often speak badly. They think fear will sound like discipline if they make the voice hard enough.â
Loâak snorted faintly. âThat doesnât make it suck less.â
âNoâ you agreed. âIt does not.â
Silence. Then, softer, he asked âDid you mean it?â
You turned toward him. âMean what?â
âWhat you said before.â He did not look at you. âAbout me.â
You understood.
âYesâ you said. âI meant it.â
Loâak swallowed. The dark hid his eyes, but not the tremor that went briefly through the line of his jaw.
âOkayâ he murmured.
Nothing dramatic followed. No collapse into confession. No sudden ease. He only sat there beside you a little longer than before, and when you rose to leave he rose too and carried half the repaired line without you having to ask.
By the third night, the ache in you had sharpened into something cleaner.
Not less painful. Clearer.
You knew you could not keep sleeping in scattered places forever. You also knew you would not return to the marui only because they missed the space you filled in it. Missing you was not enough. Love was not enough. Not when love had left certain injuries untouched for years because addressing them would have required discomfort.
So when dusk deepened and your feet turned almost without thinking toward the old path that led to the spirit place the Metkayina kept near the inland meeting of root and freshwater, you let them.
The Tree of Voices. Mangrove-wrapped, sea-breathed, threaded with swaying tendrils that caught moonlight in pale glows. The place always quieted you. Tonight it only made you careful.
You saw Ronal before she saw you.
She floated near the top of the great tree, posture bowed in a way you had almost never witnessed from her. Not weakness. Pleading. Real pleading. It stopped you cold enough that your first instinct was to turn away before she looked up.
You pivoted.
âPlease.â
Her voice cracked on the one word. You froze with your back half turned.
For a long moment neither of you moved. Then slowly, because running now would have been a kind of cruelty and because some exhausted, still-loving part of you could not do that to her, you turned back.
Ronal had risen to her feet. In the silver-blue light her face looked carved from grief. She came no closer until you allowed it by staying still.
âDo not leaveâ she said.
âI already left.â
âYou know what I mean.â
Yes. You did.
The wind shifted. The floating tendrils stirred. Somewhere beyond the roots, water moved over stone.
You folded your arms hard across your chest. âYou have words now.â
Ronal closed her eyes briefly. âI should have had them sooner.â
âThat is not apology. That is observation.â
Her gaze came back to yours, wet and unshielded in a way that startled you more than any shouted argument had. âThen hear this. I was wrong.â
The simplicity of it hit harder than defense would have.
She took one slow breath. âI was jealous. I was afraid. I heard pieces of you I could not share and instead of asking for them, I made them suspect. I let the clanâs uglier thoughts sit too near me. I told myself I was protecting what was ours, when in truth I was protecting my pride. And when I was hurt, I used the cruelest words I could find because I knew where to wound you.â
Your jaw tightened so hard it hurt.
Ronalâs voice shook more now, but she did not look away. âNo. I do not see you only as demon. I do not even see you as demon at all. I see my mate. I see the woman who has stood beside me through blood and storm and birth and grief. I see the one who raised my children as wholly as if they had first quickened under her own heart. I see the one I hurt because I was not strong enough to master my fear before it mastered my mouth.â
Pain and love and fury all surged at once so violently you nearly stepped back.
âYou said itâ you whispered. âYou cannot unsay it.â
âI know.â
âYou let those thoughts live around our son.â
âI know.â
âYou let the clanâs whispers touch me for years.â
Ronalâs face crumpled. âI know.â
There it was. No defense. No reaching for context before accountability. It left you without the clean fuel of rage.
You hated that.
âAnd what of Aoânung?â you demanded, because if you could not keep striking her, perhaps you could at least keep from softening. âWhat of Tonowari? What of the fact that none of you protected me where protection should have been simple?â
At that Ronalâs eyes filled properly and one tear slid down without her wiping it away. âThen do not forgive us yet.â
The words hit so unexpectedly you stared.
She took a step closer. Stopped. Waited. âBe angry. Stay angry. Ask more of us than one night of grief. But do not stay gone while we try to become better than the people who wounded you. Come where we can answer. Punish me with your honesty if you must. Not with your absence.â
Your throat worked uselessly around an answer.
Then Ronal, proud Ronal, fierce Ronal, lowered herself to her knees before you.
It was not dramatic. That made it worse. Better. Truer.
âI am askingâ she said, voice almost breaking fully now. âCome back and let me mend what I can. Even if it takes long. Even if you do not touch me. Even if you do not call me beloved for many nights. Come back.â
Something inside you gave way then, not into easy forgiveness but into the terrible truth that you loved her still. Loved her enough that the sight of her bowed hurt almost as much as what she had done.
You crouched before you knew you meant to. Your hands found her face roughly, as if you could still be angry through touch. Ronal leaned into your palms with a shuddering breath.
âIf you ever say those things againââ
âI will spend the rest of my life earning the right not to.â
You exhaled, shaking. âThat is not how forgiveness works.â
âNoâ Ronal whispered. âBut perhaps it is how atonement begins.â
For a long moment you stayed there, hand on her face, anger still alive and grief still raw and love refusing to die under either. Then footsteps sounded behind you, hesitant and stopping short.
Tonowari.
Aoânung.
Tsireya.
Of course.
You looked over your shoulder. Tsireya was already crying again, though more quietly now. Tonowariâs expression was almost painfully careful, hope warring with the knowledge he had no claim to it. Aoânung looked worst of all. Stripped bare by shame. Younger than he had in years.
He took two steps forward and stopped so abruptly he nearly stumbled.
âMotherâ he said, and his voice cracked so badly you closed your eyes.
When you opened them, he was crying too. Not prettily. Not with dignity. Like a boy who had discovered too late that words could not be taken back just because terror came after.
âI was wrongâ he blurted. âI was angry and stupid and I wanted to hurt and I said the worst thing I could think of because I knew it would hit and I hate myself for it and I know that is not enough and I know I am yours, I know that, I know it, and I am yours too if you still want me, pleaseââ
He broke there.
Tsireya covered her mouth, sobbing. Tonowari looked away briefly as if the sight of his sonâs grief struck somewhere too tender to witness directly. Ronal, still kneeling beside you, made no move to intervene. Wise again, for once. Let him say it.
You rose slowly and faced Aoânung fully.
He flinched before you even touched him.
That nearly undid you.
âWhat you saidâ you told him, voice low and steady only by force âwill stay with me for a very long time.â
He nodded frantically, tears falling. âI know.â
âYou do not get to speak from pain and call the damage smaller because you did not mean all of it.â
âI know.â
âYou are my son" you said, and his face broke open entirely. âYou are my son whether blood says it, or the sea says it, or Eywa herself says nothing at all. But if you ever weaponize that wound again, I will not spare you for your age.â
Aoânung was crying too hard to answer properly. He nodded anyway.
Then, because you were never not his mother no matter what you had told yourself in the dark, you opened your arms.
He came into them with a sound you would remember for the rest of your life.
You held him while he shook. Tsireya collided into both of you an instant later, wrapping herself around your side and pressing tear-wet kisses to your shoulder and jaw and temple as if trying to prove you were really there. You drew her in too. For a few breaths the three of you stood locked together, all pain and salt and forgiveness-not-yet-but-love-still.
When you finally lifted your head, Tonowari still had not moved.
You looked at him. âAnd you.â
His mouth almost twitched through the grief. âYes.â
âYou do not get to be the calm one and imagine that is enough. Your silence has teeth.â
Tonowari bowed his head once. âI know.â
âYou should have stopped it long before now.â
âYes.â
âYou let me bear things alone because you thought surviving them meant I needed no shield.â
His eyes closed briefly.
You let him sit under that. Then, because he had owned it with the same painful honesty Ronal had and because love made monsters and mercies of all of you, you held out one hand.
Tonowari took it like a man accepting judgment.
When he stepped close, he did not pull you into him immediately. He only rested his forehead against yours and breathed. That hurt most of all. The restraint. The understanding that your anger still lived and had to be honored.
âI missed youâ he whispered.
You shut your eyes. âGood.â
He laughed once against your skin, broken and relieved and miserable all at once. âCruel woman.â
âYesâ you said.
That made Ronal huff a damp, half-laugh from where she had finally risen, and suddenly the impossible thing happened.
The pain remained.
So did the love.
They stood together and did not cancel each other out.
You did not return to the marui that instant. You made them walk back with you slowly. You made them answer. Not every question. Not every hurt. But enough. Along the root-paths under moonlight you spoke of the clanâs whispers, of old wounds, of the ways love had not absolved them from confronting the ugliness around you. Ronal did not shy from hearing it. Tonowari did not hide behind leadership. Aoânung spoke little after his apology, but every word he gave was honest. Tsireya stayed close enough to touch you every few breaths as if still making sure you would not vanish again.
By the time the family marui came into view, you were exhausted to the marrow.
The sight of home almost drove you back. Then Tsireya laced her fingers through yours and tugged very gently, and you let her.
Inside, nothing had changed and everything had. Your sleeping place remained as you had left it. Your things, the few you had grabbed, were not there because you still had them. Yet the air itself felt different. More careful. Less sure of itself. Good. Let it be.
Tsireya made you sit before you could decide not to. She brought water. Aoânung, red-eyed and subdued, disappeared and returned with the wrap you had left behind days ago, folded more neatly than he had ever folded anything in his life. Ronal stood at the edge of the space as if uncertain whether approaching would wound more than soothe. Tonowari lit the low lamps and then simply remained near, visible, available, not pressing.
You looked at them and felt the ache all over again. You stood there for a long moment, looking at them all in the dim light of the marui.
Tsireyaâs face was still wet with tears. Aoânung looked wrecked by his own shame, all the sharpness gone out of him at last. Tonowari stood quiet and careful, as if one wrong movement might send you slipping away again. Ronal had not tried to come closer since your return, but her eyes had not left you once. The weight of everything still sat there between you, bruised and breathing, but it no longer felt like something that would swallow the whole family alive if no one spoke.
You let out a slow breath and looked away for a moment, gathering yourself.
âIf I come backâ you said at last, your voice tired but steady âthen I will not return to silence. I will not come into this home and pretend nothing was said. I will not make myself smaller so the rest of you may feel more comfortable with what you have done.â
âNoâ Ronal said immediately, her voice low and rough. âYou should not.â
Tonowari nodded once. âYou will not have to.â
You looked at Aoânung then, and some part of your chest still hurt too badly to soften fully, but there was room for something gentler now too.
âAnd youâ you said quietly âwill not hide from me when you are ashamed. You will face me. Do you understand?â
Aoânung swallowed hard and nodded. âYes, Mother.â
That word nearly undid you again.
The silence that followed was not easy, but it was no longer cruel either. It simply existed, full of exhaustion and the remains of tears and the fragile uncertainty of people who had broken one another open and were now being forced to learn how to touch the wound without making it worse. For the first time since you had left, the marui felt less like a battlefield and more like a place where healing might someday be possible.
Tsireya was the first to move.
She stepped toward you slowly, as though afraid you might still pull away, and when you opened one arm for her she came at once, folding herself against your side with a soft, shaking breath. You wrapped her close and kissed the top of her head. She clung to you without embarrassment, pressing her face into your shoulder the way she had as a child whenever the world felt too large or too sharp for her soft heart.
âI missed youâ she whispered.
Your eyes closed. âI know, sweet girl.â
Aoânung lingered only a moment longer before he came too, slower than his sister had, more uncertain, but no less in need of it. He did not throw himself at you. That was not his way. He only moved close enough that you could reach for him, and when you did, when your hand caught his arm and pulled him nearer, the tight control in him gave with almost frightening speed.
You drew both of your children in against you then, one on either side, and held them.
For a while none of you said anything. Tsireyaâs breathing gradually evened under your hand. Aoânung stood tense at first, then slowly let himself lean just a little into your side, no longer pretending he did not need the reassurance of your touch. You kept one arm around Tsireya and the other around him, your fingers stroking once down his back before settling there. The simple familiarity of it hurt and soothed in equal measure.
Across from you, Tonowari watched with something raw and grateful in his face. Ronal looked quieter than you had seen her in a long time, her expression stripped bare by remorse and love and relief she did not seem to know what to do with.
When the children finally eased back, you were left facing your mates.
For a heartbeat no one moved.
Then Tonowari crossed the small distance between you in that same careful way he had worn since you returned, broad body held back by restraint rather than confidence. His hand came up slowly, giving you every chance to refuse him, and rested against the side of your neck. Warm. Steady. Familiar enough that it made your throat tighten.
âYou do not have to forgive everything tonightâ he said softly. âYou do not have to be whole tonight either. Just stay.â
The words were so simple that they lodged deeper than any grand speech could have. You looked at him, at the honesty in his face, at the grief he had made no attempt to hide from you, and nodded once.
âI can stayâ you said.
Something in him eased then, not all at once, but enough. He bent and pressed his forehead gently to yours, saying nothing more, and in that silence you felt apology, relief, and love all tangled together. It was not enough to erase what had happened. It was enough to remind you why leaving had hurt like tearing out part of your own bones.
When Tonowari stepped back, Ronal still did not move immediately.
Her hands were clasped too tightly in front of her, a rare tell from someone usually so composed. At last she came toward you, slower even than Tonowari had, and stopped close enough that you could see how red her eyes still were.
âI do not know how to touch you tonight without fearing I have lost the rightâ she admitted.
Your anger stirred again at that, but more tiredly now than before. âThen do not decide for me.â
Ronalâs breath caught.
You reached for her first.
The look that crossed her face at that was almost painful to witness. She stepped into you as soon as your hands found her arms, and the moment she was close enough you pulled her the rest of the way in. Ronal held herself tightly for all of one second before breaking and wrapping both arms around you with a quiet, shaking exhale that seemed pulled from the bottom of her lungs. You held her through it, one hand at her back, the other slipping up into her braids.
âI am here.â
At that, Ronal made the smallest wounded sound and held you tighter.
The rest came more quietly after that.
No more shouting. No fresh wounds. Just the family settling around one another in the weary aftermath of too much pain finally spoken aloud. Tonowari brought water. Tsireya, still reluctant to let you out of reach, sat pressed close to your side while Aoânung fetched the wrap you had taken when you left and set it beside you with lowered eyes. Ronal insisted, in the old familiar way that was half command and half care, that you sit before your legs gave out under you. This time, when she said it, a faint thread of warmth lived under the sternness again.
You sat.
Slowly, naturally, the others gathered around you. Tsireya curled in first, leaning against you with her head on your shoulder. Aoânung sat near your knee, not touching at first, but close enough that the distance no longer felt like rejection. Tonowari settled at your other side, one arm stretched loosely behind you along the woven supports, near without crowding. Ronal remained in front of you for a few moments, as if still confirming to herself that you were real and staying, before finally kneeling close and resting one hand lightly over yours.
No one rushed to fill the quiet.
That was what made it kind.
The sea breathed beyond the marui walls. Night sounds moved through the village in soft layers. The lamps burned low, throwing warm light over tired faces and damp lashes and shoulders slowly unclenching after days of strain. At some point Tsireyaâs eyes drifted shut, her breathing evening out where she rested against you. Not long after, Aoânung shifted closer in tiny increments until his shoulder brushed against your leg. He did it as if hoping no one would notice.
You noticed.
You said nothing, only let your hand settle into his hair for a brief, gentle stroke. Aoânungâs eyes closed for half a second at the touch before he ducked his head. That alone told you how deeply he still needed to feel he was forgiven, and how young he still was beneath all the pride.
Tonowari reached for one of the woven blankets and spread it over all of you with the same quiet efficiency he brought to every act of care. Ronal watched him do it, then leaned in and pressed a small kiss to your cheek, so soft it barely seemed to land. You turned just enough to let your forehead brush hers in answer, and the relief that moved through her was so visible it made your chest ache.
By the time the night deepened fully, the marui had gone still around you.
Tsireya was sleeping against your side. Aoânung had not quite fallen asleep, but he sat drowsy and quiet near your knee, no longer fighting his own need for closeness. Tonowariâs hand rested warm and solid over your ankle beneath the blanket, a grounding touch more than anything else. Ronal remained tucked close enough that your shoulders brushed, her presence careful now in a way it had not been before, as though she had finally understood how precious your trust truly was.
You looked at them and felt the ache still there.
Not gone. Not erased. Still bruised, still tender, still real.
But underneath it, and around it, something softer had returned too. Something stubborn. Something home-shaped.
Your family had hurt you. They had failed you. They would have to live with that and do better, and you would make certain they did. But they were still yours, and you were still theirs, and tonight that truth was no longer a weapon in anyoneâs mouth. It was only a promise resting quietly in the dim light, wrapped in warm bodies and salt air and tired love.
So you stayed there with them, held and holding in turn, while the tide turned outside and the night folded gently around your home.
Synopsis, Spider wasnât the first human born on Pandora, but he was the first to grow up on it. You had Neytiriâs heart long before Jake came along, and youâd have both of theirs long after. The problem is, humans werenât meant for Pandora. Even so, Eywa saw you, and it seems like she accepted you. Maybe that's why, even after being without you for so long, they saw you again.
WC: 10.5k (oh wow)
inspired by @jsooly taken in by the sullys series!
A/N: I wrote this quite literally at 5 am, and it's drastically different from my usual writing style, but I like it! Very bittersweet! and written with the assumption that whoever is reading this knows about Sylwanin and her lore.
You were born to a soldier on Pandora, a Seargant who seemed unbothered by her pregnancy during her term. The RDA wasnât progressive, not at all, but they werenât so cruel (at least to their own race) that theyâd force a pregnant woman into work. Your mother simply made the decision to keep working, no matter how unsafe it was.
After she gave birth to you, she seemed⊠inattentive at best. She took maternity leave for the required period of time and got back into the action once she was cleared, leaving you essentially alone. It wasnât long after her redeployment that she was killed in action along with the rest of her squad. An unfortunate accident in the dangerous wilds of Pandora
So, motherless and unclaimed by a father, you were orphaned. Too young for Cryo, they let you stay. Your mother's room became yours and yours alone.Â
Of course, the RDA base was no place for a child. Ill-equipped and non-accommodative. The higher-ups reasoned that youâd best be left to the scientists and doctors. Theyâd know how to take care of a kid best, right?
Of course, no one really paid much attention to you. Giving the minimum attention necessary to keep you alive, lest they carry the guilt of neglecting an infant to death.
Grace wasnât sure what to think of you when you were put in her care. She was a scientist, not a babysitter. Her focus was on the Naâvi, their way of life, and the organisms living on Pandora. She didnât have time to look after a kid.
You were shucked off onto some lower-level scientists and assistants. She didnât hear much from you other than your crying, which was always met with swift confinement to your room with your current caretaker.Â
Eventually, though, you became autonomous. You were quick, slippery, and curious. The ones in charge of you didnât pay much attention, which led to you sneaking around. Once, finding your way into Grace's lab.
She found you at her desk, standing on her chair in only an ill-fitting t-shirt and diapers, leaning over and staring at the projection of various pictures she had up.Â
Grace wasnât cruel; she may not have wanted to be responsible for you, but she held the same fondness for kids that most did.
Carefully, she picked you up, sitting you in her lap, and asked you what you were doing.
âPic!â Is all you blurted out, head turned around, and staring at her with your wide and curious eyes. Grace chuckled, nodding as she hummed and affirmed your babbles.
You spent the rest of that day in her hold, watching as she scrolled through the pictures and videos she had in the database, explaining, in the most child-friendly way, the ones you were interested in.Â
Being just over a year old, you werenât still in her lap. Wriggling around, grabbing at her and objects, even standing up in her lap and jumping up and down, which she swiftly stopped. Despite all this, Grace was patient with you. Perhaps it was your curiosity for Pandora that softened her, the fact that you were interested in something sheâd devoted her life to researching.Â
A new brain to fill, maybe.
So, you made frequent trips to the lab after that. Slipped past your caretakers and crawling into Grace or Maxâs laps, whoever was available, and babbling on and on. You werenât the center of attention or a priority, but you became somewhat of a soft spot for Grace and her fellow scientists. Not as much of a burden, anymore.
It wasnât long before you started picking up on the Naâvi phrases being used, especially once you discovered the parts of the lab dedicated more towards the avatars and culture of the Naâvi. Grace, ever the enabler of your interest in Pandora, started speaking to you in almost strictly Naâvi.
Being so young, you picked up on it incredibly quickly, nearly at the same speed as English, which youâd only really started learning a month or two prior.
It was cute to them, having a little human baby babbling in Naâvi and focusing so intently on the fauna and flora you saw in catalogs. Some even joked that your bedtime book should be the one Grace wrote.Â
They called you the LabRat around the base. A term of endearment, of course. Many knew about you, the loose kid on base who scurried around and spent almost as much time in the lab as the scientists. You were cute. But really, thatâs all you were to them, a cute kid.Â
But to Grace? Somewhere along the way, she grew more fond of you than sheâd expected. She ate with you at breakfast, watching you messily eat out of the corner of her eye as she held conversations with the other scientists. You stuck to her side, only ever really leaving it when you wanted to be with Max or go to sleep. Even then, she often had to carry you to your room multiple times throughout the day when you fell asleep in her lap.
You spent a lot of time with Max, too. Whenever Grace was in her Avatar, which was often, you found yourself with him. He was always a little softer with you, having been more fond and sympathetic with you earlier on.Â
He treated you more like a kid than most others. He didnât really try to feed your curiosity with Pandora, instead focusing on the fact that you were a deprived orphan child. He was the most suited to take care of you, probably.Â
At some point, you found your way into the Avatar lab, watching through the windows. No one really saw it coming, but you escaped. With your little mask that was slightly too big for your face, you ran out the door, gunning right for Graceâs Avatar.Â
They didnât really think youâd recognize her, but you did, and you wanted to see her. Of course, you were a little intimidated by her drastic change in appearance and height, but at this point, you knew about the Naâvi and Avatars, so you didnât have much of a problem.
Grace, in her Avatar form, was perhaps even more loving towards you. Maybe it was the youth of the body, or the fact that she had her own internal favoritism for it, but she seemed happier. Something you picked up on quickly.Â
You loved being outside. No longer were you content being cooped up in the lab, you wanted to see the forest! Of course, they werenât exactly ok with the idea, but your crying eventually convinced them.
Grace decided to take you to the school. Sheâd made excellent progress with the Omaticaya through the school, maybe it would be good to start introducing some direct human contact⊠through you. And she figured it could be good for your development, meeting beings that werenât just inattentive scientists and soldiers.
With your mask on and sporting your cutest clothes, Grace took you to the school. The Naâvi kids were unsure about you at first, with their adverse feelings about Skypeople, but eventually they opened up.Â
You were small, so incredibly small. Even the young children had no problems holding and cradling you. You were cute in your own, human, way.
They were intrigued by the fact that your Naâvi was as good as your English. Granted, neither were particularly good, seeing as you were a toddler, but it's the fact that they were at the same level that they admired.
Sylwanin was especially interested in you, often taking you in her arms, cooing and coddling you.Â
âSaânok, sheâs so small!â Sheâd exclaim to Grace, whoâd laugh in response.
âWell, sheâs human. Youâre probably at least 2 feet taller than my human body, and Iâm an adult.â She leaned over Sylwanin, smiling down at the scene. âSheâs just a younginâ, not even 2 years old.â
From then on, you were a regular addition to Graceâs school and a personal favorite of Sylwanin and Neytiri. The two sisters absolutely adored you. Cooing over you and your babbles, sitting you in between them or on one of their laps during the lessons.
Often, theyâd sit in the back with you, giggling at your tiny body and antics, brushing your hair, or watching as you fiddled with whatever toy or objects you could get your hands on.Â
Between your time in the lab and out at the school, you were the first human to be culturally raised Naâvi. It was fascinating to Grace.Â
Tsuâtey was cautious of you at first, unsure of how to handle how small and frail you were. But out of everything, you were also incredibly persistent and curious. Somehow, you found yourself worming your way into Tsuâteyâs arms, waddling up to him and demanding he pick you up through body language.
Sylwanin found this utterly adorable, how youâd stand there and âHmf!â until he reached down and picked you up. He didnât really know how to hold you, hands tucked under your armpits, torso and legs dangling in the air, but you crawled your way around him, finding yourself sitting on his shoulders. Well, shoulder, to be exact. You could comfortably sit on one, granted it was with one of his hands on your legs to keep your balance while you grabbed onto his braids.
âTey-Teyâ âWaninâ and âTiriâ you called them, not really able to pronounce their full names. They, of course, didnât care, cooing at the babble of nicknames you gave them.Â
In turn, they started to call you âSyulĂŹ'angâ, a butterfly-like insect that was known for its characteristic claws that latched it onto whatever it landed on. A fitting nickname, they all thought.Â
Their sweet SyulĂŹ'ang. Tsuâtey was more or less simply amused by you once he was comfortable. He wasn't as doting as Sylwanin or Neytiri or some of the others; he liked you, but it was more or less than he was entertained by you.Â
Of course, that changed the more you stuck around. By the time youâd learned to walk well enough to walk to the school yourself, with Grace accompanying you, of course, he was always waiting by the doorway. Heâd give a simple nod to Grace when the pair of you came into view, and he tried to remain stoic as you ran forward, your small body knocking into his tall legs and calling out his name, but Grace, and just about anyone else who really knew him, could see through it.Â
You spent your developmental years at the school, growing up so quickly that the Naâvi kids didnât know what to do. When they first met you, you could barely walk, and all you could really do was babble and string together words, but years passed, and you began holding conversations and moving around fairly fluidly.Â
Of course, you were still small and babyish, still just a toddler, but toddlers grew and changed fast.Â
You were like their baby sister. Tsmuke, they called you. To them, you were really no different from another Naâvi kid. You spoke fluently, you were young and saw the world in a manner that seemed to reflect their own cultural point of view, perhaps from your exposure to it.Â
Grace couldnât really place when she started to love you. Maybe it was when you first called her âSaânokâ, copying the kids at the schoolhouse. Maybe it was when that transformed into âSaânuâ, or when it became âmamaâ when back in the lab. Maybe it was that day you first caught her attention, having snuck into the lab and into her heart.
She never corrected you when you called her those things, even when she got odd stares from the others around when you did. They just didnât get it. They were too wrapped up in their own world. And yeah, so was she, but at some point, you became a part of her world.Â
She didnât really think of herself as your parent, but she didnât mind if you thought of her as one. She wasnât really the nicest; she was definitely more of a âtough loveâ kind of parental figure, but that wasnât really all that bad.Â
Pandora wasnât suited for you. You werenât supposed to be there, and it wasnât a good place for you by any means. You werenât given proper attention or affection, and when you were, it wasn't consistent. Grace and Max, and the Naâvi kids werenât role model family figures, but they tried, and they loved you, no matter how⊠odd it was.Â
At some point, youâd met Moâat and Eytukan. Likely, theyâd heard of you from their daughters and Tsuâtey. It was hard to tell what they thought of you, after all, they had their own reservations about the humans, only allowing the school to function due to Sylwanin's request.Â
But they liked you enough. You were a kid, a toddler, innocent in what was being done to their planet. You didnât deserve to be on the receiving end of any prejudice they held towards the humans. You spoke the language and learned beside their children. You seemed to love the forest as if it were your own home.
Formally, you met Moâat when you fell down and scraped yourself while running out of the school, being chased by Sylwanin. You cried, of course, but Sylwanin, as calm as ever, simply scooped you up and told Grace she was taking you to her mother to get fixed up, running off before she could object.
You watched the Tsahik in awe as she worked on you, rubbing a salve on your wounds, her jewelry and beadings clinking together as she did so. You watch her in silence, Sylwanin giggling at your entranced demeanor. At the end, climbing back into Sylwaninâs arms, you turned and told Moâat she was magnificent. A big word for your age.Â
Moâat had to admit, you were a charming little kid.Â
Neytiri was especially charmed by you, often taking you from anyone else's arms to hold you in hers. It became a running joke that sheâd adopt and steal you away if she could. She never denied it.
You could always be found fiddling with her hair or necklaces, pulling at them or putting them in your mouth. Neytiri, despite not liking your actions, was patient with you, simply giggling as she pulled it from your grasp and pointed your attention elsewhere.
Some people on base started to voice complaints about you being out too much. Being gifted jewelry and pieces by Sylwanin and Neytiri, and one piece from Tsuâtey, you began dressing in them every day.Â
Of course, the complaints went nowhere, being no more than off-hand comments made by people who had no role or responsibility in your upbringing. As loved as you were, you were still overlooked more often than not, just an orphan kid who wandered in and out of the base. Outside of Grace, Max, and a few other scientists, no one really cared.
You had your routine. Getting up, spending time with Max before running out with Grace to the school. The school was your favorite place, you often told Neytiri and Tsuâtey in giddy whispers. You felt free and loved. It was your place.
When Sylwanin stopped showing up, you were sad. You missed her. Really, she was your favorite.Â
You didnât understand why you stopped going to the school, why Grace started arguing with a bunch of the soldiers more often, and why you were no longer allowed outside of the base. You cried a lot, saying you wanted your Tsmukeâs and Tsmukan. You wanted to go to the school, you wanted to see Neytiri and Sylwanin and Tsuâtey and the others.Â
You cried when a scientist, tired of your whining, told you they probably didnât want to see you.
Grace had a hard time comforting you. She didnât know what to say, struggling with her own grief and guilt in the whole situation. All she could do was hold you and tell you that things were going to be okay.Â
It was a while before you stopped crying so much. You still whined about wanting to go outside, but you learned to stop when asked. You spent your nights fiddling with the gifts from Neytiri and Sylwanin, the jewelry they crafted for you, the toy Moâat gifted you once, and the Ikran Tsuâtey carved for you out of wood. They were your most treasured pieces.Â
You worked on your own gifts for them, on and off, through the two years you spent without them.Â
You were six by the time Jake came around. You became attached to him very quickly.Â
Heâd just made it to base and was getting filled in by Norm. His introduction to Grace wasnât going well, bordered by her hostility towards him being there in place of his brother. Before he could say anything else, you bounded into the room.Â
âSa'nu! sa'nu! 'ur 'upe oe run!â Mama! Mama! Look what I found! You yelled, stopping at her feet and shoving an insect you were cradling in your palm into her face.Â
She glanced at the bug and tilted her head, raising a brow at you. â Y/n, nga kame nga're ke tung wrrpa, âitetsyip.â You know youâre not allowed outside, little one.
You pouted, stomping your foot. âOe ke wrrkĂ€! tsal pamĂ€hem ne oe.â I didn't go out! It came to me. You insisted. Grace merely rolled her eyes with a grin as she ruffled your hair.Â
Jake looked at Norm, confused, who translated a lazy âsheâs showing her a bug.â for him.Â
As if you just noticed their presence, you awkwardly glanced at the two, shyly shuffling behind Grace. Jake glanced between you and Grace before leaning in.Â
âWhatâs that you got there?â He asked, smiling as he watched your facial expression change. Before he knew it, you were launched into a whole explanation about the bug. It's name, both scientific and Naâvi, and all the fun little characteristics you noticed and pointed out to him.Â
It was easy to tell who youâre favorite was going to be among the newest science recruits. You became quick friends with the ex-Marine, demanding his attention whenever he wasnât busy.Â
You were an interesting little thing. Energetic as all could be, running around like you owned the place, switching between languages so casually as if they were one. Jake paid more attention to you in a week than most of the people on base had in your entire life.Â
Heâd come by your room, peaking in as you played with your toys or read a book you definitely didnât actually understand. As soon as you noticed his presence, youâd abandon whatever it was you were doing to run to him, hoisting yourself up into his lap.
âWhat's up, little bug?â Heâd say, smiling down at you as you went on and on about whatever it is you wanted to talk about. Most of it went right over his head, but he listened nonetheless. He got the memo pretty early on that you were essentially left to your own devices, only helped with the bare minimum by people who didnât want to be responsible for you
So, he started being more attentive towards you. Call it fatherly instincts, he calls it common empathy. You didnât have any plans or expectations for him, you werenât disappointed in his presence in place of his brothers, you simply looked up at him with those wide and love-filled eyes. That was all he needed to become hooked. His little bug, he liked to call you.
To Norm, Jake had adapted a fatherly role scarily quickly. Of course, Norm thought you were cute, but he wasnât really sure what to do with you. It puzzled him how well Jake was with you, for only knowing you for a few days. How you crawled into his lab during one of the briefings, obviously tired but wanting to be involved.Â
The briefing was casual, so Jake wrapped his arms around you and cradled you, rocking you in his arms as he hummed a lullaby heâd grown up with on Earth.
It was the first time someone had sung you a lullaby, at least since you were a crying infant everyone was desperate to soothe. You fell asleep in his arms immediately. Grace only gave a passing glance and a chuckle, stating he was now on bedtime duty.Â
And that he was. You were a stubborn kid when it came to bedtime, fighting your own sleep and exhaustion because you wanted to be where the attention was. You didnât want to miss out on any of Grace or Maxâs briefings or discoveries, no matter how dull they were, or the fact that they didnât really happen after hours. Nevertheless, you were difficult to put to sleep.Â
He was quickly called the Y/n Whisperer after he calmed you down from a tantrum and had you knocked out in bed within 10 minutes of you being told to go to sleep, an affair that often took at least half an hour and some strong bargaining.Â
Jake was still reeling from it all. For him, he was still dealing with the fact that his brother was dead and heâd taken his place on a scientific mission on Pandora, whisked away from his dystopic life on Earth and given a brand new chance. It was dizzying, and now he had a kid attached to his leg.Â
Call it what it was: whiplash. He doesnât really understand why you liked him so much, why he was able to connect with you so well. Maybe it was because he was the first person to spare you a second glance in your entire life, a second glance you didnât have to work and beg for.Â
If given the chance, Jake was sure you two would be absolutely inseparable.
It was during dinner that things shifted. You were there for Jake's recounting of the events that transpired after he got chansed off by a Thanator. Through it all, all you heard was that heâd met Neytiri.Â
Neytiri. Your Neytiri.
You missed her. You missed her so bad, and Jake got to see her. It had been two years, and you thought for sure there was no way youâd be able to see her again. But Jake saw her! He even went to the village, so he likely saw Tsuâtey, Moâat, and Sylwanin!Â
Seeing them was possible. That was the conclusion you came to.Â
Tsuâtey was the one to find you the next day. You had snuck out, exopack secured on for the first time in nearly two years, and you set off. Your memory was hazy, and you hardly remembered your way through the forest.
Scratch that, you didnât remember it at all. You got lost almost immediately, your excitement to see your friends slowly replaced with uncertainty and fear. You wandered through the woods, climbing across logs and rivers, becoming more and more sure that you werenât going the right wayâŠ
Of course, you didnât know what to do. No one could really blame you for how you started crying out, yelling for Neytiri, Tsuâtey, Sylwanin, Grace, whoever you thought could find you.Â
It wasnât until you heard the growl that you regretted your decision to be so loud. Nantang. They surrounded you, stalking and getting ready to pounce. All you could do was scream.
Tsuâtey found you, following the distant yelling for familiar names and then the high-pitched screams. He shot the Nantang, scaring off the others as he rode in on his paâli. He was ready to shoot you, the human who had trespassed onto their land, but he paused. Arrow resting between his fingers, and breath hitched.
It was you.
He was quick, dismounting his direhorse and scooping you up in his arms, doing his best to soothe you with soft words as you cried and writhed in his hold. Blood was everywhere. He was horrified.
He acted on pure impulse. Jake. Jake probably knew you. He was also human, and he was an avatar- so he probably knew Grace- he had to get you to Jake.
So he rode on his direhorse as fast as he could, holding you tightly in his arms as you bled and bled and cried. Oh, how you cried, clinging to him and whimpering, he felt so helpless. Exactly like how heâd felt that day Sylwanin died in his arms at the school house. He couldnât have that happen again. Not with you. Not with the small girl heâd grown so fond of.Â
It was a blur, finding Jake and Neytiri, the morphing look of terror on their faces as they took in the sight of the girl in his arms and his disjointed explanation. It was a blur, and he was on his knees, Neytiri holding onto him as they both shook, taking in the situation as Jake ran off into the woods with you in his arms, pushing himself as fast as he could go.Â
Jake was scared. You were such a sweet girl, and in the days heâd known you, he was hooked. You were small, petulant, stubborn, smart; you were a good kid. You were funny and fun to be around, and he liked you. He saw why Grace had such a soft spot for you, who wouldnât?
But now youâre in his arms, bleeding, and Grace is gonna be horrified.Â
He got you to the base, bursting through the doors, demanding a doctor, yelling you needed help because you were hurt and bleeding. You were small, hurt, bleeding, and it felt like you were at death's door.
You were swept out of his arms, and all you could do was whimper, reaching back out to the strong arms you felt safe in. They hooked you up to machines, tended to your wounds. They assured Jake and a just-arriving-frazzled Grace that you were gonna be fine.Â
But the base wasnât a hospital. Yeah, it was a military base, and those often come with medical centers, but it wasnât good, especially not for a child. With how advanced they were, they werenât well equipped.
You suffered for days, writhing and screaming in pain, tears only stopping once you ran out of them.Â
Despite Grace and Maxâs pleas and Jake's insistence towards Quaritch, you were essentially⊠ignored.
You were loved. But you were still just a bastard orphaned child; the RDA simply didnât want to deal with you, especially with your seemingly growing allegiance to the Naâvi.
Of course, they did what they could to help you, but it was minimal.Â
You were going to die, Grace and Jake were sure of it.
So, desperate, he went to Moâat. He pleaded for her to help you. She didnât need much convincing.
The night before Grace planned to move the operation to the Hallelujah Mountains, they snuck you out, careful to remove all your hook-ups to the machines.Â
They took you to the village, breaking so many rules, desperate to help you.Â
You were frail, withering away in his hold. The best he could do was whisper comforts as he carried you.Â
Moâat worked quickly, shooing them out of her tent as she worked on you. Salves, mixes, incense. She worked for hours. You were just a little kid; you had so much before you. She pleaded to the Great Mother to help you, even if you were a human she could barely reach.Â
You were getting better, but it wasnât enough. Something was wrong, very wrong, and she didnât know what it was or how to help.
She pulled away, examining you with a hitched breath. Just as she went to move to grab another tool, something caught her attention.Â
An Atokirina.
It floated in the air, pulsing until it wilted down to meet your skin.Â
Moâatâs eyes widened.Â
âWe must take her to the Tree of Souls.â She declared as she stepped out of her tent, the group that had gathered in front of it standing and moving in confusion.
They wanted to question it. Jake wanted to ask what was wrong, how you were doing, and if youâd live. All the words were on the tip of his tongue, but Grace grabbed his hand. She kept her gaze forward, at the tent, but sheâd communicated enough.
Tsuâtey was the one to take you into his arms, lips pursed, and eyes gazing down at you in worry. For a moment, Jake wanted to be the one to hold you, but you curled into Tsuâteys arms so comfortably- so familiar, a moment of comfort and assurance when you were in so much pain.
Neytiri followed close behind, hand resting on your forehead as they walked, her eyes focused on your face scrunched in agony, your pinched brows and wavering lips. How she wanted to soothe you, to hold you, and kiss away the creases of pain in your face.Â
Youâd grown so much since theyâd last seen you. You were still so small, but so much more grown. They had missed you so much, their grief compelled by the loss of two sisters. They nearly begged Moâat and Eytukan to call off the ban on humans on their land, if only to see you.
And now, you were back in their arms, but by the force of necessity and desperation. Out of the fear of death.Â
The clan, having roused at the commotion, made their way to the Tree of Souls with the group. They didnât question their Tsahikâs care of the human child, many of them having heard the accounts of you and your kindred nature from the many children whoâd attended the school.
Arriving at the Tree, Neytiri and Tsuâtey kept Grace and Jake at a distance, allowing Moâat to prepare as the clan gathered around. They pulled Jake and Grace down to the ground with them, connecting their Kuru to the roots sticking up. They started to hum, moving as a group.Â
With everything in them, they begged Eywa to help you.
You were human, yes, but they loved you. You were their sister. You were Grace's daughter, by love if not biology. You were a sweet kid, and they wanted- needed you to stay.Â
âAllow this child to heal, Great Mother, allow her to heal and walk among us. To live, to feel your embrace.â Moâatâs words echoed, her chants and pleas thrumming through the crowd.Â
Placed at the base of the spirit tree, you lay there, wrapped in luminescent tendrils. They wrapped around your small body, seemingly consuming you as they grew. The light of the tendrils pulsed with your every breath, echoing across the tree like a ripple in water.Â
You⊠you felt free. The tendrils were warm, encasing you in what felt like a mother's embrace. Your vision was blurred, but you saw. You saw so much, all you could do was smile. You saw Sylwanin, every time youâd seen her, every word, every movement. She wrapped around you. You saw the sea, you saw the forest and the land. It was breathtaking.
Moâat faltered, her chants falling off the tip of her tongue as she glanced down at you. At this, the ones whoâd brought you here opened their eyes.
They didnât know what to do.Â
You were there, alive. More alive than youâd ever been, but they could feel that you were slipping away.Â
Neytiri crawled towards you, Grace scrambling up and finding herself at your side. She took your hand in hers as Neytiri caressed your hair.
They knew it was a desperate attempt, taking you here, unlikely to work, but it hurt. They werenât ready to let go. The humans werenât going to help you. What else were they to do?Â
Tears slid down Graceâs face as she watched you, your eyes glazed over as a smile crept onto your lips.Â
âY/n- SyulĂŹ'ang please-â Neytiri whispered, her voice cracking. She leaned down, placing a kiss on your forehead. âStayâ she begged
âSyulĂŹ'ang,â Tsuâtey choked out, pleading, biting back his words, and tears with them. âBe strong, stay with us.â
You heard their words. You wanted to reach up, to comfort them. Grace was right in front of you, and all you wanted was to reach up and wipe the tears off her face.Â
Grace cried. Silent, of course. Tears slipping down her cheeks like arrows of fire burning their way through the air. They hurt like it. She wondered if theyâd scar, if there would be a trail of scarred flesh down her cheeks when she was done.Â
You were her child, at least, the closest she had to one. You were the best thing sheâd had in a long time. And now, you were slipping away. Like the school, like Sylwanin, like Neytiri and Tsuâtey and the children whoâd called her Saânok. You called her Saânu.
The grief was endless. A fountain pouring from Neytiri as she wept, hands shaking as she tried to fight the urge to take you into her arms. Sheâd seen you grow up, your words develop from babbles to sentences, your mind expand. She wore the bracelet youâd made for her. It was ill-fitting and poorly crafted, but she weaved it into her armband, careful to preserve its shape and structure. She meant to always have you with her, even if she couldn't physically.Â
You were more than a child she saw as a sister; you could have been her child. A ridiculous notion, but she felt so strongly about you. She wanted to take you in, hold you close, and carry you as she did her chores and duties. She wanted to hunt and bring it home for you to eat till you were full. Perhaps, to her, you were an odd mixture of a sister and child, but that just meant she loved you all the more.
Her sweet SyulĂŹ'ang. Sheâd named you after the insect, a beautiful creature that fluttered around and gripped onto surfaces when it meant to. She wished and wished and wished that you'd stay, that youâd grip onto the ground and stay there with her. She did not like humans, but you? You, she loved.
So it hurt, watching as your eyes closed, feeling your pulse slow, have you die right in front of her, right in her reach.Â
Your eyes, heavy, rose up to the sky. âSaânu, Tsmuke, Tsmukan, Jake-â Your words were quiet, strained, and heavy. But you spoke anyway, a warmth passing through your body. âEywa, sheâsâ It was hard to speak. âSheâs like the waves-â your breath released from your lips, cutting off your words.
The tendrils around you pulsed before they dulled, the light dimming across the Tree of Souls.
Jake could only hold Neytiri as she cried, his own tears falling as he felt his entire demeanor freeze.
They left you by the tree, something Grace opposed. But Moâat had insisted it was Eywaâs wish. Jake and Grace werenât happy, nor were Tsuâtey and Neytiri; they wanted to give you a proper burial, but they complied with their Tsahikâs declaration.
It was mere days later that Neytiri visited again, only to be met with an empty landscape. You were nowhere in sight, only an abundance of tendrils in your place, pulsing with light as Eywa breathed below them.
Ronal, for weeks, dreamed of a face. A human one. Sheâd never seen the girl before, unfamiliar with the face and voice she kept meeting in her dreams. It bothered her, being met so forcefully with a demon's face, but behind it, she felt the Great Mother's words.Â
She couldnât make sense of it; it drove her wild how she prayed and prayed, and all she was met with were new visions of the girl. With a newborn baby, she felt stretched thin. She confided in Tonowari about her dreams. He did what he could to comfort her, putting in effort to relieve her of as much stress as he could.Â
Ronal prayed, seeking answers and clarity. What did the Great Mother want?
One night, she dreamed of the spirit tree, along with the girl. She dreamt of whispers, of a new face, of a young Metkayina child she held in her arms.Â
She woke up in a cold sweat, right as dawn rose in the sky.Â
She made her way through the village, mounting her tsurak, and traveled to the cove of the ancestors. She felt a weight in her chest as she arrived. She dove under, swimming through the featherlike branches as she made her way to the center of the tree.Â
She reached forward, placing her palms on the branches wrapped tightly in on itself. Slowly, she unwrapped it, pulling it away from the other âleavesâ wrapped around. Once she got to the center, she pulled back.
An infant lay in the middle, wrapped in the leaves. Slowly, she pulled it out, taking it into her arms, she swam up. Breaching the surface, she looked down, watching as the baby breathed in the air.Â
The first breath.
Ronal gazed down at the baby, brows pinched together as she took her in. Confusion was the least she could describe it as.Â
A moment passed. Ronal mounted her tsurak, and she returned home.
Whispers surrounded her as she walked through the village, eyes following her and landing on the unknown infant in her embrace. In the mere minutes sheâd had the baby, she felt an overwhelming sense of maternal instinct towards it. She reasoned she felt that way about most babies, but this was stronger.
She approached her Marui, Tonowari, meeting her at the entrance. He gazed down at her, then the baby, confusion panting his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, stuck in the flurry of words he was trying to put together.
âThe Great Mother brought her to me,â Ronal spoke, calm and melodic. âTo us.â Tonowari gazed up at her.Â
Words exchanged between them in complete silence.Â
He nodded, stepping aside, allowing Ronal to enter the Marui.Â
The two took to their daughter quickly, entranced by the baby given to them by Eywa. They were lost, confused by her appearance, but they didnât question it. They simply placed her in the cradle with their other baby, Aoânung, watching as they turned and curled to hold each other.
âYou dreamt of her.â Tonowariâs voice broke the silence.
Ronal, attention on the baby's unwavering, nodded. âLast night, yes.â
He looked to his wife, tentative as he examined her facial expression. âAnd the others?â He questioned.Â
There was a moment of silence, Ronalâs hand coming to rest on the edge of the cradle.Â
âI do not care. She is my daughter. She is ours now.â
Tonowari stared at his wife before nodding, reaching down to cup his daughter's face in his hand. âAnd what is our daughter's name?â He spoke, already transfixed by the infant lying in the cradle he crafted by hand.Â
Ronal tilted her head, watching the girl. After a moment, she gazed to Tonowar, their eyes meeting as a soft smile graced her lips.
âSyuliâ
After your death, Jakeâs loyalty to the RDA wavered. Grace had accepted her fate as a trapped scientist long ago, but Jake refused. He bonded with Neytiri and Tsuâtey quicker, earning the faith of the clan before he finished his Iknimaya.Â
He saw it in black and white. The humans left you alone and to die, the Naâvi loved you as their own and wept at your death. His decision was clear-cut.
Still, his fast actions werenât enough to prevent the events that led to Neytiriâs belief of his betrayal. Or the destruction of the home tree. Or the death of those he fought by.
By the end of the war, your death was followed by many others. Black stains on Jakeâs heart. He mourned you, grieved for you. The devastation of the war was hard enough, but you? You werenât even a casualty; you were a victim of the most unfortunate of circumstances. He replayed it in his head over and over again, each time wondering what he could have done to save you, to prevent your death.Â
It drove him to the worst of his depths. A side of himself he hadnât even seen when his brother died.Â
The only thing keeping him afloat was Neytiri and the child that lay in her womb.
âShe is with Grace now, my Jake, with the Great Mother.â Neytiri would say, burying her grief. Twice, she's lost you now. When Sylwanin died and her parents shut down their connections with the humans, she wept for not only her sister but for you. Would she never see you again? At least back then, she found comfort in the fact that you were safe and in Graceâs care.Â
Perhaps you still were, in her arms, just as you are in the Great Mothers. But youâre not in hers. Thatâs what hurt. How youâd never grow up, forever stuck as the small child she knew and loved.Â
Time passed, and she had Neteyam. Her sweet baby boy. She felt the cracks in her heart start to be stitched back together, only further healed when they took in Kiri.Â
She saw it in Jake, too, how he took to his fatherly role immediately, perhaps better prepared after his time with you. Slowly but surely, they came to be okay again.Â
Still, you burned in their hearts. As she wove her songcord, she pulled one of the beads from the bracelet you made her, as carefully as she could, and wove it in.Â
Aâeveng, Y/n, ohe oamumÂ
Wamintxu fi oe, a syawn
aâatanur oe mameyamÂ
meyam ohe ngenga, tsalsungay pehrr lom
A child, Y/n, i knew
showed to me, a blessing
a light I held in my arms
I hold you, even when gone
It was hard to speak about you to the kids. They didnât want to introduce the idea of someone dying at such a young age. They also still grieved you, struggling to accept your death. It wasnât fair. You should be with them, growing up alongside their children. You would have been such a good big sister.
This hit Jake especially hard, knowing how youâd been excited to have another kid on base; Spider. You raved to him about how you were going to bring him to the lab all the time, what toys youâd give him, and how you wanted to teach him Naâvi and have him as a little brother. At least, the closest you could have to one.
So it was hard watching Spider do all that, grow up and learn Naâvi, come into his family and be seen by his kids as a fellow sibling, knowing it was everything you wanted.Â
But years passed, and their family grew, and it grew strong. Their children knew of you in passing, in hushed breaths like how they spoke of Sylwanin and the others theyâd loved that left them through such harsh tragedies.Â
Neytiri and Jake didnât want the children to wonder what it would have been like to have you in the family. It was already too painful for them to wonder themselves.
Their children grew, their personalities developed, and they came into their own. It was hard not to see you in each of them. Tukâs curiosity, Loâakâs mischief, the softness in Kiriâs eyes, and how Neteyam was so thoughtful with his words. For all its hurt, it also gave them comfort. Theyâd continue to see you, even when you werenât with them.Â
Their grief became something mellow, something they could plant love and strength into.
But then the RDA came back. Like an old scar tearing apart, refusing to heal. Their lives turned upside down, and their healing came to a harsh halt, slowly stepping backwards against the blood and gunfire they stood in.
That eclipse, when the kids were in the hands of the recoms, Jake felt barbed wire wrapping around his throat.Â
He heard their whines, their yelps of pain, and he almost lost them. He refused to risk it. Not again.
âHe had our children. Had them under his knife.â He was scared, begging Neytiri to leave, to find a better place for them. He hadnât been able to find one for you. He wouldnât let that happen again. âLook, I got nothing⊠I've got no plan. But I can protect this family. That I can do.â
Neytiri heard the unsaid, seeing what he saw when he spoke.Â
âBut I do know one thing, wherever we go, this family is our fortress.â It was unintentional, his hands placed delicately on her shoulders, one slipping down, grazing the armband sheâd woven with your bracelet in it.
They had to protect their children.Â
The Travel to the Metkayina was difficult, tiring, laborious, and met with storms that raged against them. But they pushed through. Theyâve pushed through worse; theyâd do this for their family.
They landed on the beach, drawing the attention of the clan, who gathered around them in confusion and awe. They were nervous, holding themselves close together as they were gawked at and picked on by oncoming clan members.
Jake felt a sense of relief when Tonowari, an honorable man and the clan's Oloâeyktan, arrived at the scene, greeting them warmly and with a smile. He felt confident, with Tonowari on their side, he believed he could get past the wall Ronal would inevitably put up.
As the crowd parted, he prepared himself, but he felt all the breath be taken out of his lungs.
Ronal stalked closer, her imposing demeanor, but that wasnât what shocked him. Behind her, following at her heels, was a young girl. Teal skin with swirling stripes.
She resembled you.Â
He couldnât place it; the girl was Metkayina, in every way. But something about her face, the way her expression was set in it, how she carried herself. The air around her, the look in her eyes. All of it set off bells in his chest, ringing and clanging against the grief that settled there. The grief for you.Â
She stood behind Ronal, tilting her head exactly the way you did when you were curious about something.Â
Neytiri had seen it hundreds of times, holding you in her lap at the schoolhouse. She let out a breath. Jake glanced at her, millions of words passing between them.
She saw it too.
Jake took a moment to collect himself, pulling back from the shock heâd experienced but couldnât explain. He went on with his prepared speech. He was seeking Uturu; sanctuary, safety for his family.Â
His veins were buzzing. He didnât want to be turned away, to force his children to retreat in defeat, praying theyâd find another clan willing to listen and take them in. He felt helpless.
Ronal, skeptical, circled the family. She pulled at their tails, remarking how inefficient theyâd be in the water, in their way of life.Â
She approached Kiri, taking her hands in hers. A scowl crossed her face. Four fingers. Kiri held her breath, self-conscious of her extra finger, a tell-tale sign of their human descent. Demon descent.
Ronal gazed down, tilting her head.
She looked up to her daughter, the one whoâd arrived with her. She watched her for a moment, the dreams she saw all those years ago flooding her mind. Something sheâd never speak aloud.
She dropped Kiriâs hands, walking past the children and Jake Sully. âYou are ill fit to live here.â
âWe can adapt. We can learn.â He pleaded, desperate to convince them to let his family stay. Desperate to appease the leaders of the clan.Â
âIâm done with war.â He spoke to Tonowari, quiet and between them. âI just want to keep my family safe.â
Ronal watched him, not convinced by his words. Behind her, her daughter stepped forward, placing her hand on her mother's shoulder.
âSaânu.â The words escaped her lips, and Jake breathed in. He saw you, sitting in Graceâs lap in the lab, running up to her excitedly, lying at the spirit tree, dying.Â
Ronal looked at her daughter, words exchanged between their gazes, she turned to her mate, being met with the same sentiment. A moment passed, and she nodded.Â
âJake Sully and his family will stay with us.â Tonowari announced, explaining to the clan their duty to teach them their ways of life.Â
Jake sighed in relief, bringing forth a âthank youâ from his family.Â
âOur children, Syuli, Aoânung, and Tsireya, will show your children what to do.â
Aoânung stepped forth, displeased by his father's decision, but silenced.
âCome, we will show you our village!â Tsireya stepped forward, hand in hand with her sister.Â
You looked to the family that had arrived at your village. You took in their faces.Â
They felt familiar to you. You couldnât place it.
Tsireya tugged you along through the village, humming as you made your way across the woven walkways. Neytiri and Jake, though focused on taking in their new home, couldnât help but watch you. The bounce in your step all too familiar.
It was eerie, and they didnât understand their attribution of you to the little girl theyâd known all those years ago.Â
You became a constant in their life, always around their kids, peeking into their Marui to offer fruits youâd picked with your mother. You were a sweetheart, thoughtful, and kind to their children.Â
Your mother stayed skeptical of her allowance of the foreigners into their clan, fueled by your growing night problems.Â
It had been years since she last caught you sleepwalking. It was a problem when you were a child, roaming around the village in the midst of the night. Many concerned clan members came to her with stories of how you found yourself at the edge of the walkways, staring up into the open sky with a withered look on your face.
You sleep-talked, she discovered after staying up to follow you one night. You spoke garbled sentences, strung together words that didnât make sense. You spoke in a mix of Naâvi and English.
How you even knew the language? She couldnât understand.Â
She prayed nightly, seeking for guidance on how to help her sweet baby girl. Again, she was only met with visions of that human child.
It all came to a head one night when Tsireya woke her up, lip jutting out as she whispered that youâd fallen during your walks. Ronal soothed her daughter, telling her to go back to sleep before leaving to find you.Â
You were on your knees, hands clasped together as you spoke in broken prayers, eyes glazed over. You were somewhere she didnât know.
She was tired of it, worried to death, and lost. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She pulled you into the water carefully, holding you as she rode to the Cove of the Ancestors. You came out of your trance, slowly but surely, but still drowsy and out of it.Â
She was able to coax you to enough consciousness to get you to dive under, connecting with the spirit tree.Â
She doesnât know what you saw when you did. All she knows is that you hadnât sleep-walked, or talked since. She knew you were special. A child she would never truly understand, but she loved and cherished you with everything she had.Â
She saw the way the animals around you seemed to move in sync with you, how the luminescence at night pulsed with your breath. She didnât ask for answers. She loved you and she trusted the Great Mother.Â
But here you were again, standing at the entrance of their Marui, eyes glazed over, staring off into the stars. Ever since theyâd let the Sullys stay, youâd been walking and talking in your sleep again.Â
It wasnât as intense, thankfully, but it was enough to rouse her or her children from sleep every so often.
They worried for you. They took turns staying up, watching you, easing you back to sleep, careful not to startle you from your trance. During the day, they acted as if nothing was different. They knew you were different, but they loved you nonetheless. You were their daughter, their sister.Â
Aoânung picked on you, teasing you and going out of his way to bother you. It was his way of showing his love, he joked. He had his moments. Picking you up in his arms and carrying you across the village to your mother for treatment when you hurt yourself on a spear, ignoring your complaints that it was your hand that was injured, not your legs, you could still walk! He ignored you, carefully setting you down in their Marui, lurking by the door until you were bandaged up and ready to leave.
Tsireya was easier. You got along with your younger sister without any problems, aside from the occasional spat that never went anywhere. You two were two peas in a pod. Inseparable. Hands clasped together, arms wrapped around each other. You were always together. Itâs how you thrived.Â
Ronal and Tonowari, they never gave a second thought to the fact that you werenât theirs, because you were. From the moment theyâd set you down in that cradle, youâd become theirs. Their love for you was strong and unwavering. They called your name out with affection, they weaved you jewelry and clothes with love, they never let you doubt you were loved. They held you as you slept, as you dreamt.
And you dreamt. You dreamt every night. Of faces, of voices, of people you didnât know, but knew.Â
By the time you woke up, your dreams were in blurry fragments, unable to be pieced together or made sense of.Â
Your family didnât voice their worries to you. They saw how you flourished when interacting with their new clan members.Â
You were patient with them, guiding them through your way of life like it was the easiest thing to do. You blended in with them, conversing with the children so easily, it was as if youâd been doing it your entire life.Â
You and your siblings, Rotxo, and the Sully kids became somewhat of a friend group. Always together, at least in fragments. You felt as if your family had expanded.
The Sully kids adored you, especially Kiri. It was something about the way the two of you seemed to understand nature that connected you. And perhaps, your mysterious origins.Â
You confided in Kiri, and Kiri alone, about your peculiar birth. The whole clan knew, theyâd witnessed it firsthand, but the story hadnât made its way to the Sullys. Perhaps it was because it was accepted, no one thought twice about it, you were Ronal and Tonowari's daughter. No one thought to mention that, by biological means, you werenât.
You told her how you didnât know your biological parents. No one did. Abandoned at the Spirit tree, you were taken in by Ronal and Tonowari, raised alongside Tsireya, and essentially as Aoânungâs twin.Â
She told you about her mother, a scientist who was beloved by their clan, who died during the first war against the humans. She was born from her Avatar.
Grace.
You spoke her name before Kiri told you.
An odd look passed her face. It wasn't until it dripped from your chin that you realised a tear had slipped down your cheek.
âI-iâm sorry, I'm just-â You strung together words, embarrassed and confused by your unconscious outburst. âItâs hard to speak about my birth.â You blamed it on that. Kiri accepted your words, wrapping her arms around you in an embrace that felt warmer than anything else youâd experienced.
You grew a lot closer to the Sully kids. It was their parents who were odd to be around.
Jake and Neytiri didnât know what to think of you. You were Ronal and Tonowariâs daughter, Naâvi, born and raised in the reef. Yet when they looked at you, heard your voice, all they could see was that little girl theyâd loved.Â
They were going crazy. That was the only explanation. Driven mad by the destruction of their home and subsequent forced abandonment of it.Â
They wanted to talk to you. They ached to. But it ached just as much to do so. It wasnât fair to you, their projections of grief onto you.Â
You were kind, you spoke for them when they first arrived, and you went out of your way to welcome them. You taught their children and defended them, taking them in as if they were your blood.Â
But every time they saw you, they were swarmed by a whirlpool of grief and relief.Â
âShe speaks like her.â Neytiri would whisper one night, when all the children were off in the village attending a celebration, Jake lying next to her.
âYeah.â Heâd say, eyes locked on Neytiriâs face, watching as she wandered through her mind. Watching as a tear slipped down her cheek.Â
For weeks, they watched you, watching every movement and quirk you exhibited. How you spoke, how you moved through the walkways, your sense of humor. The way you scrunched your nose in a certain way when faced with food you didnât like. It all pointed back.
Back to her.
That girl.
She haunted them.Â
A ghost following them around. One they thought theyâd put to rest over a decade ago.Â
They had moved on. They grieved her, yes, but they had learned to live without her. Just as they did with every person they lost.Â
But she was back.Â
They thought it was in their heads at first, but the more they saw, the more they became sure.Â
Her body had disappeared, Neytiri recounted to him, a whisper under her breath as they watched you talk to Neteyam and Tsireya from afar. Theyâd left her at the tree like Moâat demanded, abiding by Eywa's wishes. Her body was gone far too quickly to have been natural decomposition, and no creature would dare feast on a body wrapped in Eywaâs arms like she was.
They didnât question it, too wrapped up in their grief to try and breach the topic. They simply accepted it. Eywa wanted her. She was with Grace, they believed.Â
But she wasnât.
She was in the reef, living amongst the people, living.Â
They saw you, and they saw her. One in the same.
Theyâd grieved you, and now you stood right in front of them, out of their reach.
It tore them apart. They must have been going insane because you were not that girl they knew, you were not the girl they loved and doted on. But you were.
You couldnât be.Â
But they watched and they watched and they saw. They saw her.Â
âItâs not her.â Jakeâs voice was steel. Laced with a hardened grief.Â
âI know what I saw, you know what you see.â Neytiri defended, unsure of how to explain it.Â
He shook his head, pacing back and forth in the Marui, sliding a hand down his face.Â
âSheâs a Metkayina! Sheâs Ronal and Tonowaiâs daughter! That's it.â He spoke so certainly, as if he were trying to convince himself.
The two breathed heavily, working through their mind and hearts to get their words. Logic wasnât making sense, but they tried to cling to it, both of them in different ways.Â
âRonal didnât give birth to her, nor did Tonowair father her.â Neytiris' words were heavy, like steel and stone. âA gift from Eywa, Ronal calls her.â
Their eyes met.Â
At this point, they were haunted less by you and more by the fact that you were back. It wasnât easy mourning someone, learning to accept their death after having grown to love them so fiercely, to learn how to live without them. All of that, only for them to appear again.Â
All those walls theyâd built, all the strength theyâd planted in their grief, it was crumbling, the base of it all blowing away like sand in the wind.Â
It almost hurt more than the grief itself.Â
They simmered in it for weeks, speaking through glances and hushed whispers.Â
It was quiet that day. Jake was making his rounds through the village when he heard it. The humming. Not just the humming but the tune.
Slowly, he rounded the corner, peaking around the Marui, eyes landing on you sitting on the edge of the walkway, legs dangling from an opening. You sat there, beading an arm piece as you hummed.
You hummed the lullaby Jake had used to sing that girl to sleep. The lullaby from Earth.
He felt his chest crack open. He wanted to say something, to reach out and speak to you-
âSempu!â You called out, spotting Tonowari walk up from another direction. Wordlessly, you held up your work for him, a smile spreading across your face as he approached and knelt down.
âAh, this is great work, my little âitetsyip.â He leaned in, hand reaching up to pull it closer to examine it. He grinned, nodding towards you. âYou are an exceptional crafter.â
Jake watched the scene, brows furrowing, a weight resting in his chest.Â
You rolled your eyes. âOh, bah! You and Mother praise me far too much.âÂ
Tonowair simply chuckled, his hand moving to cradle your cheek as you grinned at him.Â
âNo, we simply see how great you are.â
Jake started to notice more after that. He watched not just you, but your life. How you wandered freely through the village, greeting your clan members eagerly, your cheerfulness returned. You were surrounded by kids your age, all watching you with a mix of adoration and respect. You bonded with your siblings, giggling over inside jokes and banter.Â
Your parents were doting. They didnât spoil you; they made sure you were responsible and self-aware, but they loved you, and they showed it. The more he watched, the more Neytiri did too; perhaps sheâd been watching the full scene the whole time.
You werenât alone.
You smiled so widely, and you never had to beg, you never had to work for attention or affection. You were accepted wholeheartedly.Â
You had everything you wanted here, Neytiri and Jake realized. You had everything they wanted to give you, and you didnât have any barriers. You werenât human or parentless. You moved about freely. You werenât raised to expect to come second, third, or fourth place.Â
Neytiri and Jake had wanted to give you that life. But they couldnât. They never could.
The Great Mother didnât fulfill their desires to be the one to love you; she gave you what you needed. She gave you the opportunity to live.Â
It was bittersweet. You had the life you wanted. You were loved.Â
Just not by them.Â
And that was ok.Â
Theyâd lived their lives, theyâd found happiness, a family, and they were good.Â
Youâd found what you needed, even if it wasnât with them.Â
She was 9 when it first happened, it was during a hunt with her mother that she first noticed something wasn't right, her lungs ached and her back hurt, her heart pounding more than it should have.
She kept on noticing Small things, small signs that something wasn't right.
It happened the night of her 10th year. They had all gone to bed, everyone sleeping soundly until Neytiri was awoken by gasping. She looked around for the reason of the sound, her eyes falling onto her panicking daughter.
"Y/n?" Neytiri rushed over to her daughter, hands hovering
"MaJake!" Neytiri shouted, waking her husband.
"What?"
*this is based very loosly on something that happened to me, I was born with my condition but readers was a genetic mutation that doesn't show up until the start of Puberty.*
Could be a genetic that carried over from Jake's human side? It's life lona.
They rush her to norm, where they manage to stabilise her.
(They get her medication and a nebuliser type machine?) make sense? Or something like that?
Burden : ÌÌâ
âą Pairings: Aoânung x Sully!Reader
âą Warnings: Chocking, suffocating, mention of self hate, medical talking may not be accurate, some characters may be oc, feeling unwanted, panic attack, anxiety
âą Authorâs note: I had so much fun writing this, and I did them both cause I felt like they were kind of the same thing I hope yâall like it! Forgive me for any mistakesđ
Enjoy!đ«¶â€ïž
Main masterlist
You were born wrong.
Thatâs what the people said when you were small. Some made it their mission to avoid you in every way. Kids looked at you weirdly, some making fun of you by repeating what they had heard their elders whisper.
A curse was what you were called.
All because you were different.
Different in a weird way, not like your siblings who had small insignificant traits that did not affect their everyday life.
You had human lungs.
They worked, mostly, but they burned when you ran too long, seized when the air was too cold, didnât let you breathe pandoraâs air for more than a few hours.
But it didnât bother you as much, because at first, it was small so it was easy to ignore.
The first time happened around the age of 7, you were on a hunt, just you and your mother.
The forest quiet except for birdsong and the soft crunch of leaves beneath your feet. You kept pace easily, following your mother with a happy smile, bow steady in your hands, until a dull ache bloomed in your chest.
Not pain but pressure like.
Your lungs felt tight, like the air wasnât filling them all the way, as if it wasnât enough. Your back ached, a strange soreness that made you shift uncomfortably.
Your heart was pounding too fast.
You tired to shake it off, you told yourself it was nothing. You didnât want Neytiri to worry.
You were strong.
You were a Sully.
So you suppressed it until you didnât feel it again. And you did the same thing the other times too, you pushed it aside until it didnât bother you anymore.
But then it started getting worse the older you got, until it led to the incident that changed your life.
It happened the night of your tenth birthday.
The familyâs Kelku was quiet, light long faded, your family slept peacefully, everyone in their own hammocks.
Neytiri opened her eyes, ears perking up at the sound of soft, broken gasps.
For a heartbeat, she didnât understand what she was hearing. Eyes darting around the room until her eyes settled on you.
You were sitting upright in your hammock, fingers digging into the fabric, your knuckles were hurting. Your chest heaving violently, breaths sharp and fast, like you were drowning on the air. Your eyes were wide, teary with panic.
âY/n?â Neytiri whispered, already moving to stand next to you. Placing her hand on your arms she felt you trembling like a leaf.
âMama..âyou managed to choke, hands going to your neck. You tried to speak, to tell her but no incoherent words were coming out.
Fear slammed into her, her hands trembling as she felt helpless, she immediately turned to her mate shouting. âMa Jake!â voice breaking as she wrapped her arms around youâMa Jake!â
Jake bolted upright instantly, ears flattened against his head, eyes darting to his mate. Once he looked at you, gasping and trembling in your motherâs arms, the color drained from his face.
âWhatâs wrong?â he demanded, feet quick to move at your side.
âShe cannot breatheâNeytiri said, panic leaking into every word. âHer heartâlistenââshe tried to explain but the sobs that were coming out of her mouth made it impossible.
Jake pressed his ear to your chest, and his blood ran cold at the way it was beating far too fast.
You gasped again, a desperate sound, body curling in on itself as your lungs refused to cooperate.
Your siblings woke up at the commotion, little Loâak cried as he got startled by the noise, while Kiri gripped tightly the fabric of her hammock in fear. Neteyam was the one who stood up, going to your side and peeking from behind his fatherâs shoulders.
âNo, no, noâ Jake muttered, looking around for a solution, for anything that could help. âOkay, itâs okay, weâve got you.â
You were crying, tears streaming down your face, fear settling in. In that moment you were convinced death was knocking at your door.
Neteyamâs ears flattened, terror struck him as he watched you become pale.
Neytiriâs breath shattered, hold tightening around you. Her mind was foggy she could not think nor see clearly as she held you close.
âOh great mother..â she cried, whispering and pleading for Eywa to protect you and keep you by her side.
Jake didnât waste another second.
âYou stay here and look after your siblingsâhe said to Neteyam, who quickly nodded. He then lifted you into his arms, turning to his mate âweâre going to Norm. Now.â
đđââË
Norm nearly dropped his tablet when he saw you, jaw on the floor.
âOh shitâ he breathed, already moving to turn on the machines and devices.
Your oxygen levels were crashing. Your lungs were inflamed, spasming, behaving nothing like a Naâviâs should.
âItâs a mutationâ Norm explained quickly as he worked, fitting a mask over your face that pumped mist into your lungs. A nebulizer, adapted from human tech, modified. âItâs a Genetic expression delay. It starts showing with pubertyâ.
Jakeâs stomach dropped. âItâs from meâhe said quietly, jaw clenched.
Norm nodded slowly âyeah, itâs humanâs lung structure trying to function in a Naâvi body. Itâs⊠rare, but survivableâ.
Jake stood frozen, guilt crushing him.
The medication burned at first, then slowly your breathing eased. Your chest loosened, air finally filled your lungs without pain and so you went limp from exhaustion.
Neytiri sobbed silently, thanking the great mother as she pressed kisses to your hair.
âSheâll be having other episodesâ Norm continued, breaking the silence. âSheâll need meds, a portable breathing device and monitoringâ.
ââŠWill she live?â Jake questioned, barely audible.
Norm met his eyes with a grim expressionâyes, but itâs gonna be scaryâ.
And it was, every time.
Because that night was just the beginning of what was gonna be a long nightmare.
đđââË
There were days where you just hated it.
It felt like you were a stranger in your own body.
You felt uncomfortable, especially on those days were the attacks were painful and made you want to claw your way out of your skin.
Your family made it their mission to make you feel normal, even with all the machines you had to sit next to once a day or the way you couldnât keep up during training.
But you knew the truth.
You were a burden.
You were nothing more than a thorn at their side, you slowed your siblings down whenever you were playing.
You always worried your mother, she never rested easy whenever you went out. Always waiting to see you come back, praying to Eywa that you do not have one of those attacks that might take you from her.
Your father was much more gentler with you, too gentle, in a way that irked you. Because he treated you like a helpless little creature.
You had stricter rules to follow if you wanted to go out.
You werenât allowed to train seriously like your brothers because then you would strain yourself too much.
You needed to be with someone at all times or else your parents were gonna freak out.
Like the last time.
You had decided to sneak out in the middle of a scolding that Jake and Neytiri were giving to Loâak, after another one of his brilliant ideas failed, you didnât go very far after all you were scared too.
You were laying on the ground, fingers feeling the grass beneath you, chuckling as you felt tickled by it. The forest was alive around you.
And for the first time after a long time you had felt free, your cheek pressed against the grass as you breathed in the air slowly. It burned a little, stinging just enough to get your eyes to water but you did not care.
Because it was just you and the forest, and you had missed this.
After a while, after the burning sensation started to bother you, you stood up, making your way back to the familyâs Kelku.
With each step you took, with each breath that you inhaled the burning sensation started to turn into something more.
You walked quicker as you felt your breath being pulled away slowly, panic rising in your chest.
Thankfully you were not far away and you began to hear your brotherâs voice calling for you, tone filled with panic.
Once he spotted you he was quick to run to your side, noticing the way your pace was slowing and your chest was rising faster with each breath, trying to cling to the last bit of air.
âSheâs here! Dad!âLoâak placed his hands on your forearms, guiding you to sit on the ground as he kept calling for his father to come quick.
Jake came running, sprinting through the woods with a mask on his hand.
As soon as he reached you and your brother he was quick to active the nebulizer and gently place it on your face. âItâs okay sweetheart, itâs gonna be okayâhe guided you, gesturing you to take slow deep breaths.
He let out a big breath of relief once he heard you gasp and inhale, hands trembling, going to your chest to hear your heart beat slow down and go back to normal.
He hugged you tightly, before pulling away to check on you. âWhat were you thinking?âhe questioned, voice harsh but you could still hear the underline of worry in it.
âI wanted to go out alone for once..âyou answered, standing up with the help of your younger brother, knees trembling slightly.
âIâm sorry..âyou continued, voice low , gaze locked to the ground, ears flattened against your head, almost disappearing.
You hated seeing your family worry so much about you.
There were nights were Kiri did not sleep. Instead she stayed by your side, scared that you were gonna be taken from her in the middle of the night.
You could feel it, you always sensed her footsteps approaching your hammock slowly. Sometimes she even squeezed herself next to you, head against your chest to feel your heartbeat.
Loâak did the same but he was more sneaky about it. He woke up during the night to check on you silently, putting his fingers under your nose to see if you were still breathing.
Neteyam did not wake up in the middle of the night but he was always by your side during the day. You were mostly with him, taking walks even if he could sometimes get too protective as well. But training with him was much less overbearing than with your father.
You did not like to train with your father since it ended up with you either getting frustrated with the fact that he did not let you do anything outside of shooting arrows, or with him being too worried, too cautious to the point where he just sent you home.
The outcome was always the same.
You getting frustrated.
Tuk was the only one in the family to actually make you feel normal.
She just loved to be in your presence.
You would carve her wood animals, that she asked for with her usual puppy eyes that you could not refuse.
Or braid her hair in a pretty way adding flowers, beads and everything she asked as she ranted about something she has seen today.
Or sheâll do your hair in a messy way, little hands working as best as they could but you always praised her for her hard work, never making her feel bad for making you have to redo your hair all over again.
However you still did not feel like you belonged anywhere truly.
You spent most of the time in the lab since you could feel free there, the air was safe and breathable, you even spent the night there when the attacks were too close to one another. Neytiri reluctantly agreed to let you.
But you were not human, at least you were not physically human, so the lab was not your place. You were too big, sometimes your tail knocked over things or other times you would break something while holding it.
But you also did not feel Naâvi. As much as you loved the forest and the people you did not think they reciprocated.
The people looked at you through judgmental gazes, not many went out of their way to talk to you or even be nice to you.
So that was why you did not make as much as a fuss as your siblings about leaving the forest.
You were sad, after all you would have to leave your grandmother, the place where you grew up and all the memories you made.
You would miss the forest, but you were sure she would not miss you.
Throughout the ride, behind your fatherâs back, you smiled as you admired the ocean beneath, the creatures swimming by.
Even if you could not feel the wind blowing on your face since you had the mask on, something Jake was being paranoid about, you could still feel it on your skin and it was the best sensation ever.
You never rode an Ikran, never bonded with one.
You parents did not even let you think about having one of your own, so you could only imagine what it would have been like flying freely like your siblings in the air, with no care whatsoever.
The sensation bought you shivers down your back, smile widening as you stirred one hand out.
Neteyam who was riding close by, turned to see you beam with happiness and he smiled at the sight. Signaling it to Loâak, who also let a smile slip past his lips.
In times of sadness and sorrow your happiness managed to bring them joy.
đđââË
Once you landed on what was the Metkayina clanâs territory, your father helped you climb down the Ikran.
Your toes wiggled as you felt the sand, it was nothing like the grass back home. The texture was more grainy and smooth.
The excitement at the new place quickly died down once you noticed the people there look at your family with gazes that were usually redirected to you only.
Your mother quickly hissed at you to come behind her, and you obliged immediately, trying to hide from their view.
Neteyam took a protective stance, taking a step forward to shield you once he noticed the way you fidgeted with your hands, usually a sign of stress from your part.
You stood with your mask still on, fingers flexing at your sides as the waves rolled in and out. You almost gave in to your desire of inhaling and feeling the fresh air against your face but you knew this wasnât the right time.
You felt as if you were naked in front of these people.
Their eyes darting to your familyâs features, brows furrowing as they noticed the thin tails and arms, wondering how they could live with them with such useless tails, but their frown deepened once they set their gaze on you, looking confused at the thing you seemed to be having on your face.
Your ears flattened as you watched the Tsahik of the Metkayna clan humiliate your family, walking toward your siblings slowly, judging them. Pointing out Kiriâs five fingers however once her own gaze set on you she gave you the same look her people did.
âAnd what is this?âshe questioned harshly, taking a step closer toward you. Loâak tensed as he stepped forward to shield you. But before she could add anything your mother hissed at her, reminding her just who her husband was.
Your eyes felt glassy, at that point you did not pay attention to their conversation, too engrossed in your own spiraling thoughts.
You did not know why you had such high hopes for this place to be any different than your own home.
Your tail swayed behind you, eyes darting nervously everywhere for an exit, chest tightening by the second.
Your fist clenched as you tried to calm your nerves down, biting your lips hard enough to draw blood.
Kiri noticed from the corner of her eyes, she wrapped her poncho around you, hands going to yours, squeezing them softly to reassure you.
You let out a deep breath before turning to her with a small grateful smile that she reciprocated.
Your ears perked up when you heard the Olo'eyktan announce that your family will be staying and learning the Metkayna ways.
You turned to look at the kids that were supposed to help you adjust to this place.
Your eyes met the tallest oneâs, his gaze was so intense, making you grow uncomfortable as you shifted in your place before he looked away, focus stolen by something the other one next to him said.
đđââË
The girl, who you had heard was named Tsireya, showed you the way around, bringing you to what was supposed to be your new home.
You entered the place curiously, hands touching everything in sight, fascinated by this new place above the sea. This was so different from the forest you were used to but it was so enchanting.
It didnât take you long to adjust to the sea unlike your siblings, to hold your breath or learn to swim.
The air there was not that harmful to you, but you still needed to be careful. So you kept a mask by your side at all times, something your parents made sure you never forgot.
The first time you breathe the air, you did not feel the burning sensation you usually felt.
You took a careful breath.
Then another.
For once, your lungs didnât scream at you for existing.
They hesitated but they didnât seize.
The ocean air was different.
Thick, wet, heavy, welcoming in a way that the forest air never was.
It was like the sea was your true home.
Your family stayed paranoid about it though, you always felt their eyes on you.
Someone was always by your side no matter what, but since your siblings were mostly busy you always managed to slip away for a few seconds.
With time you managed to get out of your shell and speak to the others. Although the ones you truly talked to outside of your family were Tsireya and Roxto.
The one you havenât spoken a single word to was the eldest boy, Aoânung.
You had to be honest, you were intimidated by his presence and the way he looked at you sometimes made you feel like a wounded prey out in the open. He did not have a nice reputation around your family either.
He made fun of them, calling them names and mocking their appearances. However he never said anything to you.
Perhaps it was because you avoided him like a disease whenever he seemed to open his mouth or step closer, or perhaps he knew you werenât worth the effort and just left you alone, which you did not mind.
Until one day you were sitting peacefully by the water, the waves came crashing gently on the shore, the sun was shining brightly.
You had managed to slip away from your familyâs firm watch, deciding to sit on the sand and weave a necklace for your mother. A gift you thought would be nice to give her since you rarely saw her smile these last few weeks.
You were humming softly a random tune you had picked up until a set of footsteps caught your attention.
You turned around immediately, meeting Aoânungâs gaze.
He was walking closer to you and you felt your stomach drop.
Before you could get up and take off like always, he raised his hands in surrender. âPlease donât run, i did not came here to fightâhe spoke, tone softer than usual.
You reluctantly went back to sit down, easing your hold on the strings that you had crushed with your fist.
He followed suit, dropping down on the sand a few inches away from you.
Even without looking at him you could feel his gaze on youâcan I ask what you are weaving?â He questioned, gaze slipping to the strings and beads you had in hand.
You hesitated, gaze locked to the ground beneath you before you answeredâit is a gift for my motherâ.
You heard him let out a breathless chuckle, âI could help you weave it the way we do itâhe offered.
You turned to him surprised, meeting his gaze againâyou would?â Your voice came out much more lower than you intended but thankfully he was close enough to hear it.
He nodded once, a smile tugging at his lips. âIf you are gonna stay here, you might as well learn the way we weaveâ.
You lost track of time, hands following his movements, brows furrowed as you listened carefully to his words. A comfortable air settled over you two, you almost forgot this was the same boy who insulted your siblings constantly.
He looked so different.
His tone was gentle, he never shamed you once for the mistakes you made only teaching you patiently over and over again, never once complaining.
Soon one time became all the times.
You two met in the same spot every evening before darkness set so he could teach you more mundane works.
It became a secret meeting for you two, and since then he has been less mean with your siblings. Instead of picking on Loâak, he just focused on teaching him the right techniques with some occasional slip of the tongue but it has been getting better.
Your siblings were all shocked by his sudden change of attitude. Loâak said it freaked him out since he wasnât sure it was genuine, but you believed it.
Because you got to see his soft side when no one was there.
It was the first time someone outside of your family treated you with gentleness and patient instead of insults or weird stares.
And whenever he smiled your chest tightened, but it wasnât because of an attack.
You almost didnât get many attacks anymore, they lessened by the day. It got to the point where you forgot to bring a mask with you, even if your family freaked out once they saw you walk back in without one.
You finally felt normal.
Or so you thought.
Because you had let your guard down.
It happened while you were laughing.
Really laughing, head tipped back, the ocean breeze filling your lungs as Aoânung splashed you, smug grin plastered on his face.
âYou are slow, forest girlâ he teased.
âOh, shut upâ you shoot back, laughing harder as you chased him through the shallows.
And then your chest tightened.
Painfully.
Your breath stuttered, cut off like the air itself has turned solid. You stopped mid-step, fingers clawing at your throat as your lungs refused to pull in enough air.
Aonung turned just in time to see your smile vanish.
âHeyââ he started, tone filled with confusion.
You dropped to your knees.
Thatâs when panic slammed into him.
He splashed back to you, hands shaking as he grabbed your shoulders. âAre you alright?â
Youâre trying to breathe, desperately. Your chest heaved, lungs burning, spots appearing in your vision.
You gasped but nothing came.
Aonung yelled for help.
Neteyam, Kiri and Loâak were close enough to hear his shouts and ran to help. When they came closer their hearts dropped as they saw you.
They were on you in seconds.
Neteyamâs hands were steady as he worked to help you, but his eyes were wild, ears flattened against his head.
Kiri pressed her forehead to yours, glowing fingers warm against your arm as she whispered prayers under her breath. Loâakâs face drained of any colors, his hands trembling, not sure what to do until Neteyam told him to run back and get the nebulizer.
Aoânung looked wrecked.
He was hovering, pacing, muttering frantically.
âShe was fineâshe was laughingâI donât understand..â
Aoânung had heard you had some problems, breathing ones. He did not know the full extension of it, but he did notice how you would sometimes look dizzy or that strange thing you always had either on your face or strapped to your waist.
He had heard from your siblings, once he made peace with them, that you had some kind of âattacksâ related to the breathing problems.
He never knew how scary they truly were.
Loâak came back running, device in hand before he threw it to Neteyam, who quickly activated it and placed it on your face.
Finally, your lungs caught.
Air rushed in, sharp and painful. You coughed violently, chest spasming as you folded forward, gulping breath like youâve been underwater too long.
Neteyam exhaled so hard his shoulders sagged.
Kiri squeezed your hand like sheâll never let go.
And Aonung dropped to his knees in front of you, eyes blazing, hands reaching for yours.
âPleaseâ Loâak blurted, also dropping down next to you. âStop trying to die.â
You managed a weak laugh between coughs. âNotâtryingââ
When you turned, you were surprised to see Aoânung looking so wrecked. Seeing fear in his eyes hurt worse than the burning in your chest.
đđââË
After that incident Aoânung has been glued to your side whenever he saw you. The memory of the attack still imprinted on his mind.
During your meetings you could feel him hovering slightly, he began reminding you to not forget your mask, sometimes his hand reached for yours unconsciously.
You did not mind.
Your own gaze seemed to be always redirected toward him. You had found yourself admiring him more than you would have realized.
Your meetings became longer and filled with many conversations unlike before, where you usually stayed silent and he did most of the talking while showing you the Metkaynaâs ways.
What you thought was a friendship quickly started to bloom into something more.
During festivals, where you preferred to stay far enough to not interact with others but close enough to hear the music, he stayed with you.
When other reef kids tried to make fun of the mask you wore from time to time, he was quick to defend you. Just a look from him was enough to make the others walk away, not wanting to pick a fight with the chiefâs son.
When you first bonded with an Ilu, he took you swimming to his favorite place. A beach not too far away from the village, you stayed there for hours. Splashing each other, running or sitting down on the sand, chatting about everything that came to mind.
You had found yourself falling for the Metkayna boy.
đđââË
One day, you were in the water, not too deep in, playing with young Ilus. He had come from behind you, startling you.
âAoânungâyou spoke, placing a hand to your chest. âYou scared me! Skxawngâ.
He chuckled, tilting his head to truly admire you.
âMy apologies, I did not know you could get scared that easilyâhe answered smugly.
You rolled your eyes at him, before he placed one of his hand on your upper arm, heat rushed to your cheeks.
You had just noticed how close he was.
âI came here to confess somethingâhe spoke again, this time his voice was gentler, his smug grin vanishing instead replaced by a vulnerable look.
You nodded your head once, encouraging him to continue, gaze locked with his.
He took a careful breath before opening his mouth.
âI see you.â
Your eyes widened, mouth agape.
âI have, since I first set my gaze on you if I was completely honestâhe let out a weak chuckle. âYou are beloved to meâŠI have made many mistakes that Iâm not proud of and Iâm trying to fix what I have doneâ.
He stepped closer, the water moving alongside him.
You stayed frozen for a second.
Heart racing in your chest. Breath hitching.
âYou wonât be happy with me..âyou finally spoke, voice breaking, cutting him off before he could add anything else. âI am a joke, Iâm not a true Naâvi. Iâm not what you deserveâyou finished, eyes glassy.
He took his other arm from behind his back, in his hand there was a necklace.
A beautiful necklace.
Woven from translucent beads and soft pearls, gathered around a large shell pendant that glowed with ocean hues, as if shaped entirely by sea rather than his hands.
You gasped in surprise, taken aback.
âI had been working on it for months, switching materials until I thought it was beautiful enoughâhe said, smiling at the way you admired the necklace. âAlthough now I can see that there is no match for your beautyâ.
Your cheeks flushed, tail swishing behind you.
âYou are no jokeâhe started againâI believe you were sent by Eywa herself, you are a blessing to meâ.
He met your gaze, you swallowed still not sure about what to say or do.
He noticed how you seemed to hesitate. âI will not force you to be with meâhis gaze dropped, looking at the art craft in his hands.
âI just thought I should let you know.â
You noticed the way sadness washed over his face.
He thought you were rejecting him.
You smiled, reaching up, fingers brushing his cheek.
âI see you, Aoânungâyou whispered, smile widening at the way he beamed with happiness.
He placed the necklace around your neck, every time his fingers brushed your skin you felt heat rise up to your cheeks.
He then leaned closer and you felt your heart skip a beat.
Just as you thought his lips would touch yours, he placed a kiss on your temple.
âI will protect youâ he promised âIf you slow, I slow. If you stop, I catch you.â
You placed your forehead against his collarbone, his tail wrapped loosely around your leg.
âI want to become the man you deserve.â
A/n: Iâm so sorry with school work and everything I took so long at writing this, I hope yâall like it!<3
summary: Broken by the fall of the Hometree and Eywa's silence, you dream for a possibility of peace of mind, figuratively and literally. You come to the Metkayina's village looking for a temporary refuge in your search of said peace, and end up never leaving in favour of love.
pairing(s): tonowari x omatikaya!reader, platonic reader x neytiri
word count: 15k (i know...)
warnings: reader is neytiri's sister, grief and mourning, mention of dead bodies, eywa's constant meddling, probably suggestive, yearning, pining, "but i don't want ninat", added lore cuz i got carried away, kinda miscommunication, no ronal hate, space racism?, complex neytiri i fear...., mentioned pregnancy, mentioned childbirth, rotxo is adopted lmao, when the story starts reader is around 19 and both neytiri and tonowari are around 22, takes place after avatar (2009), proofread one time instead of the two usual times so pls let me know if there are any errors
author's note: can't believe this fine shyt is now a single dad
dividers from @uzmacchiato!
When the smoke clears and the ashes fall, nothing is left of the Hometree.Â
Nothing but the stump, the bulging roots and the cut-off part remain of your destroyed home. Youâve never seen one, but you think that the remains of the tree must look like a decapitated corpse â something that once was full of life, and now is just⊠there. A reminder of what was.Â
Many managed to evacuate the branches as it fell, but just as much ended up being buried by its massive limbs; you canât find it in yourself to understand if it was a blessing â for them to have such a quick death, one that avoided them from feeling the endless grief youâre feeling now â or a tragedy. You keep asking Eywa the same question, but either she doesnât know, or she wonât tell you.Â
She hasnât been telling you much lately, anyway.Â
As the daughter of the Oloâeyktan and TsahĂŹk, you grew up close to the bond you shared with Eywa. Moâat always brought you and your sisters along with her to pray, and the three of you soon learnt how to perceive her in everything you did and everything that happened. The Great Mother is in all of us, your mom used to always say, before you fully grasped the concept. She gives, and we take. And when the time comes, weâll be the ones to give back what we borrowed.Â
It looks like, to you, that the time has come. Only, Eywa wonât seem to take anything from you.Â
During the day, youâre back at the ruins of the Hometree, with a few other Omatikayas looking for the remains of their loved ones. When they are easy to remove, you do so, and then give them the burial they deserve as a part of the People; when the branches have buried them too deep in the terrain for you to remove them, you pray for them and their souls, hoping that they are, at last, at peace.Â
At night, you pray by the Tree of Souls until the first morning lights shine through the outline of the mountains, when your mother wakes and gently drags you to the marui you share with her and orders â more like begs â you to sleep. âYou wonât be able to hear Eywa better if you tire yourself so, daughter,â she utters as she holds you tight in her arms, humming that same lullaby she used to when you were little. âI doubt she wants you to be exhausted.âÂ
You sniffle brokenly, hiding in her shoulder like a child as she covers you with the blanket she had stitched with the help of Sylwanini and Neytiri when she first realised she was pregnant with you. Itâs a miracle you managed to salvage it from the fall of the Hometree, as most of your belongings have been lost during it. âWe still havenât found Tsuâtey, saânok,â you whisper, muffling a sob.Â
Moâat sighs softly, holding you tighter. âOeyĂ€ yawne,â my beloved, she starts, âTsuâtey died a great death. Even if you do not find what remains of him, Iâm sure Eywa will hold him close nevertheless. He fell into the ocean, after all â sheâs strong there, too. We might not think of it to be our home, but everywhere Eywa is, can be considered our home.âÂ
Still, itâs hard to believe that Jakesully out of all people is helping rebuild your village.Â
Heâs supposed to be one of the aliens that came from the sky â one of the four-fingered demons that have destroyed your home. And somehow, Eywa still chose him to lead the Omatikaya.Â
You donât deny his bravery, nor his will to learn your ways, nor the fact that he is a great warrior â Turuk Makto, in fact. It doesnât mean that it isnât hard for you to look at him and not see the Hometree lying dead on the ground, burning, and the Tree of Voices reduced to shreds under the dozers.Â
You know itâs probably just your grief talking â youâve never had anything against the man, not even when he first came here, blabbering about wanting to learn the way or whatever the RDA had put in his head â but you donât know what else to do. When youâre not looking around for the corpses of the fallen, or praying for them, or begging Eywa to tell you the meaning of all of this, youâre either crying or trying to sleep â and when the latter comes, itâs never restful.Â
Neytiri is grieving, too, and you know it, but she takes it differently â because she has Jake, and sheâs putting all she has into building a new, safe village, where maybe one day their kids will grow happily. But you feel stuck â like when it fell, the Hometree swallowed you, too, along with all the fallen comrades that you had known for your whole life.Â
Your answers finally come during another restless night spent under the Soul Tree.Â
Your mother has since stopped trying to coax you away from it â instead, she has taken to making salves and weaving shawls under the light of the branches as you weep silently for a sign, the terrain still against your body, unlike the usual steady beat you used to feel. Sometimes Moâat braids your hair, other times recalls stories of your father and sister, but mostly lets you cry it out â even if her heart breaks every time a tear slips down your cheek. Neytiri sometimes comes along, chanting her songs and saying her prayers, but lately, sheâs taken to spending her nights in the tent she calls home, with Jakesully.Â
(Not that you blame her. If you had a mate, youâd probably find comfort in them, too. If you had a mate, maybe you wouldnât be so utterly hopeless.)Â
Itâs when you find sleep while having these thoughts that finally, Eywa responds to your call in the best way she knows â a dream.Â
You feel like youâre floating, and finally, finallyâ you can feel her presence. Sheâs everywhere, surrounding you with her warmth, and itâs just when you look around to understand where you are that you notice that you are underwater. Life swarms you from every angle â the fishes twirling in a dance only they can understand, anemones and corals shimmering with bioluminescence on the rocks under your feet.Â
You donât know for how long you swim, but what you know is that you havenât felt this feeling in what seems like ages. You have missed the Great Motherâs presence, and if this dream tells you anything, itâs that maybe, she has missed you, too.Â
A large, warm hand engulfs yours. You canât see the face of the man that has taken it, but by the color of his skin, he canât be Omatikaya. Come with me, a voice says, and you arenât able to really distinguish it â it does not sound like a real voice, rather like a spoken thought inside your mind. Our Spirit Tree is this way. You feel the same hand on the small of your back, guiding you in the water, in a way so gentle that you already dread the moment his touch will fade.Â
You wake up with your hand still feeling warm and dried tears staining your cheeks. The ground youâre lying on feels stiff and cold. Hoisting yourself up on your elbows, you notice the sky â itâs still night â and your mother, sleeping with her head leaning on the trunk of the tree. âAre you trying to tell me that I have to find my peace somewhere else?â you murmur quietly to the tree, impossibly tired in every way imaginable. And maybe itâs just an impression, or your lack of sleep, but you think the branches glow a little more than usual at that.Â
The hard part is not accepting to leave behind the Omatikaya â in your heart, you knew that a part of you died when the Hometree fell, and no new village would ever make up for what the sky people have taken away from you; every camp made after that would only look like a ghost of what was, where you grew up in.Â
No, no. The hard part is convincing both the TsahĂŹk and the Oloâeyktan to let you go.Â
By the time morning comes, your bags are already packed. Your ikran, Ryâia, is waiting for you just outside of the village chirping softly with Neytiriâs mount, Saâatra, as you pull on your traveling shawl and wait for the villagers to wake up before your departure. Needless to say, it doesnât take long for chaos to erupt.Â
Neytiri drags you away from the astounded clan members as soon as she gets wind of whatâs happening, Moâat and Jakesully on tow when she sits you down in one of the newest tents, her face unreadable as she takes a seat in front of you. âExplain.âÂ
You look at her mate and your mother, sitting respectively on her left and on her right, and suddenly your heart fills up with courage you werenât even aware of having. âI had a dream last night,â you start, âEywa has shown me where to find my peace again.âÂ
As you recall your vision, you can tell that the only one fully understanding the meaning of it is your mother, because while Jakesully doesnât look too troubled about it, Neytiri hasnât had that betrayed look on her face towards you since you were seven, and you stole the last piece of fruit intended for her. âWhat?â she asks in pure disbelief, âWhaâ why would you ever think of going away from here, sister? We have plenty of men who would be delighted to have you as their mate. We have the ocean. We have fishes. Do you really have to look for them from another clan to be happy?âÂ
You shake your head, guilt seeping through your chest. âSister, if I could be happy while being here, close to you, I would stay. ButâŠâ Your eyes drift up to Jake and immediately go back to her, not wanting to blame him for all the things humans have done to you. âI canât find it in myself to build a new village that Tsuâtey, fatherâ hell, Sylwanin wonât see. And even if I couldâŠâ
You scroll your shoulders, âEywa has shown me the way,â you say firmly, âand I will follow it.âÂ
Neytiri looks over to Moâat, searching for support in the discussion. âMother, please, tell her this is madness,â
She looks at her for a singular moment, then to you. Finally, she speaks. âWhen I was your age, I had a dream, too. It led me to your father.â The story isnât new to you â everyone knows Moâat was part of the Orangi clan before she married your father.Â
Neytiri stares at her, âMother, you canât be seriousâ she doesnât even know whereââÂ
âHow can she know, if she does not try?â The TsahĂŹk interrupts her, âEywa has shown her that she wonât find peace while living here. These things are rare, but they happened. That was my case, at least.â
Your sister gapes at her, flabbergasted, only to look back at you, getting back up on her feet. âIf you leave,â she hisses, âI will never forgive you.â She storms out, her tail twitching after her, leaving the tent feeling even colder than before.
Finally, you manage to look at Jakesully straight into his eyes, trying to avoid the glare your mother is sending him, and youâre surprised to see an actual understanding of the situation there. âYou do understand why I canât stay here, do you?â
He blinks, sad. âI do.âÂ
You nod, âGood. I would never ask you to leave â this is your home, too, after all. And it would mean sacrificing Neytiriâs happiness. Iâd rather be happy here too, but⊠I canât do that. Not while my loved ones lay under the Hometree, dead.â you shake your head, ashamed of what youâre about to say, âNot while you are here living the life they deserved. I am sorry, Jakesully.â
Tentatively, he places a hand on your shoulder. âItâs okay,â he mutters, sorrowful, âI know you would stay here if you could. Just⊠please, do not go today. Wait until the end of the week. Let me talk to your sisterâ Iâll try to change her mind.â
As he leaves to go look for Neytiri, you are left with your mother. Your eyes remain downwards, all the courage of before gone after your sisterâs outburst, your heart feeling heavier than ever. Needless to say, when she moves to hug you, youâre left stunned â you were waiting for her to tell you you were mad, too. âI am sorry, daughter,â she says, her usually firm voice trembling, âI did not understand your pain was so great. I thought Eywa had in her plans to keep my daughters close to me, but if having you far from me is the price for your happiness, then Iâll gladly take everything that comes with it.â
You avoid mentioning her teary eyes when she pulls back, her hands holding your shoulders. She sniffles, trying to save face. âThe Metkayina are the only sea clan your fatherâs ever had contact with,â she manages, "their Oloâeyktan may still remember him. You should start your search from there.â
In the following days, you are smothered with gifts.Â
Everyone makes something for you to take on your travels, or to give to the chiefs of the foreign clans youâll visit. Your friends Ninat and Peyral stitch a beautiful shawl in record time, stitched beads and feathers in it. So that you may have something to remember us by, Peyral explains, emotional, as Ninat nearly bursts into tears.Â
Your mother makes a TsahĂŹk necklace typical of the Omatikaya and tells you to give it to the wife of the chief. Showing respect to your hosts is always important, remember. Do not forget your culture, but do not force it on them, either.Â
Even Jake turns up one night, giving you a funny-looking bone knife that he clearly has just learned how to carve. âAs a⊠parting gift?â he tells you, even if it sounds more like a question. His ears bend down, âIâm sorry you feel like you have to leave to be happy. I wish things didnât have to be this way.â I wish you could overcome our differences like your sister did.Â
You look at the knife â the jaggedy blade looking ugly but clearly heartfelt â and then back at him. âYouâre a good man, Jakesully,â you tell him. âI am truly sorry that my opinion on you has to be stained by what your kind has done to us â but perhaps, itâs just because things are a little too fresh. Perhaps, I just need some time away from here.âÂ
Neytiri doesnât come looking for you until it is time for you to go. As you say your goodbyes to friends and everyone you grew up with, she shuffles quietly behind Jake, her hands behind her back. Still hugging Kaâani, you look at her as she gets closer, suspiciously quiet, only to present you with a bead on her open palm.Â
You gasp at the sight of it â itâs a bright blue stone, one of the ones to be found only in the ikransâ nest, with the Omatikaya clan symbol etched on it. âFor your songcord,â she explains, not looking you in the eye. âTo mark your⊠new start. Your travels.âÂ
You look at the bead, taking it in your hands, then tug Neytiri close to hug her as tight as possible. âIâll miss you, sister,â you murmur in her shoulder.Â
Even if sheâs supposed to be mad at you, she reciprocates the hug immediately, and it doesnât take long for the tough facade to crumble. âPlease, come back when youâre finally happy again, okay?â her voice is trained, and you doubt anyone but you heard her whisper. âThis will always be your home. Youâll always have a place to stay here â with me.âÂ
Ryâia is delighted in the change of scenery â you can tell by the way she reacts through the bond, but also the happy shrieks she lets out once you lower her near the surface of the ocean so that her wings may touch the water. You look behind you â to the mountains that youâve called home ever since you came to the world â one last time before turning your gaze back to the sea, the directions your mother gave you etched into your mind.Â
Awaâatlu is almost three days of travel from your village, turned into four by the stops you make to allow Ryâia and yourself some rest. And when you finally reach it, itâs night, and only a few lights are shimmering in the Metkayina village. Not wanting to disturb their sleep, you turn your ikran to the rocky side of the island â devoid of any maruis from what you can see â and land atop the coast, dismounting from Ryâia and patting the side of her neck. âGood girl,â you murmur, ârest now, yes? Iâll take a dip and be back here with you in a moment.â
You remove your traveling shawl as she chirps quietly, remaining in your loincloth and chest piece as you dive into the waters.Â
You feel like crying in relief when you finally feel her. Eywa is everywhere here â she surrounds you with the water in bioluminescence, in the anemones that move in rhythm with the currents and the nocturnal fishes that swim around in a haze. Itâs like waking up from a bad dream, being able to finally feel her again.Â
Even if brief, the peace it gives you swells your heart. The Great Mother wasnât holding a grudge against you â you simply werenât searching for her in the right place.Â
You resurface to catch some air, only to notice that you arenât alone.
A turquoise zukzuk â an otterfin â stares at you with her big eyes, and if she werenât an animal, youâd say she was smiling at you. She rubs her snout into your shoulders, chirping happily, and you chuckle, petting her back, âArenât you a cutie? Oh, yes you are, yes you areâŠâ
She licks your cheek, and you fake a gag even as she basically throws herself in your arms. âNow, hasnât anyone ever told you not to trust strangers? If I were a tad bit more selfish, Iâd totally bring you home with me,â youâre not sure how you would manage an otterfin in the forest or while traveling, but youâre sure that if thereâs a will, thereâs a way.Â
âHey, you shouldnât swim here when itâs dark,âÂ
The screech you let out is loud enough to wake up the whole village, youâre sure. The zukzuk â who looks more scared than you â jumps in your arms as you hug her, ready to defend her from any possible attacker. The latter â a man with turquoise skin and weird tattoos over his face â screams back, mostly startled by your yelling.Â
âSorry, sorry!â he puts his hands in front of him as your screams die down, still hugging the otterfin, âI didnât mean to startle you, itâs just that â weâre too close to the reef, and itâs mating season for the akulas. Their cubs will start hunting for preys any moment now. Itâs dangerous to stay here for long.â
You share a look with the otterfin, whoâs still cuddled to you, and itâs just then that the man seems to notice her. He frowns, âNala, is that you?â It's the same tone you use for Ryâia when she pulls some kind of stunt you told her not to do, and the zukzuk lets out a noise while looking at you with the biggest eyes as if to say, Iâve never met this man in my life.Â
The latter gasps, âIt is you!âÂ
The pup cuddles closer to you, hiding under your chin, her tongue slipping out of her mouth like she wants to mock him. You raise an eyebrow, âThis is your zukzuk?â
The guy nods, âShe knows she shouldnât swim here at night, itâs dangerousââ
A rumble from below interrupts him, and you all freeze. ââŠWhat did you say about those akula cubs?â You donât even know what an akula is, but judging from the fact that apparently their cubs make swimming at night dangerous, it canât be anything good.Â
His hand wraps around your wrist as he starts to drag you away, back onto the shore, much faster than it took you to even get here. âJust where did you come from? Are you Taâunui really so clueless?â Another rumble from behind you, and he swims even faster. You keep Nala under your arm, and she keeps moving her tail like sheâs trying to help him move away.Â
Itâs only when youâre out of trouble and onto the shore, where the water reaches your knees and youâre illuminated by the bioluminescence and the moons, that he notices that you donât look like a Tauânui at all. He stares at your slim tail and arms, leaning his head like heâs never seen a specimen like this, and even your clothes are weird. Quite dumbly, he pulls at the feathers stitched into your top, staring intently, âWhat are those?â
The fact is, youâre also just noticing that he doesnât look like normal Naâvi men, too â at least, not to the ones youâre used to. Heâs broader, taller, and apparently also dumber, because he doesnât even seem to notice that heâs just grazed and uncovered part of your breast.Â
You deadpan. He blinks. Nala barks. He lets the feathers go as he turns purple, âSorry, I didnât notice.â Heâs lucky that the Omatikaya are people raised with no shame about their bodies, because otherwise, the slap you wouldâve given him wouldnât have been too nice from a girl whoâs supposed to look for uturu in his clan.Â
You squeeze the water out of your hair as he stares weirdly, Nala twirling around the two of you. âWhy were you swimming if the waters are so dangerous at night?â You ask him, trying not to stare too much at his arms â you never thought that the Omatikaya men needed more muscles, but now you understand that if they did, it wouldnât have been such a bad thing. His tail â twitching uneasily behind him â is thicker and longer than yours, and his arms have strange prolongments on their sides â to help swimming, you suppose. While Omatikaya grow slender and thin to avoid any difficulty in swinging in the forest, maybe the Metkayina grow to swim more efficiently in the ocean.Â
âI was looking for her,â he points at Nala, âwe spoiled her a little too much, and now she doesnât know how to take a no.â He tries to smile at you, âYouâre not from around here, are you? Your tail would be horrible for swimming.âÂ
You nod, âIâm from the forest clans â the Omatikaya.â you tell him your name, and he nods. âI came here looking for uturu, but the village seemed to be asleep when I got here, so I figured I would talk to the chief in the morning.â
He looks troubled, âIâm Tonowari,â he introduces himself, âIâm from the village. Uturu? Has something happened to the Omatikaya?âÂ
No matter how much you insist he doesnât, he drags you to the village â in the literal sense, as you didnât want to follow him and he has to take you by your wrist â and over to a secluded mauri, where he finally lets go. Ryâia chirps tiredly beside you, huffing indignantly at him as you wrap your shawl tighter around your shoulders. âIâll talk to Oloâeyktan and TsahĂŹk,â Tonowari tells you, nodding to the mauri, âwait for me here, okay?â Nala quietly follows him, dragging her little belly over the sand.Â
You didnât really explain the whole thingâ you just told him that youâre here to find contact with Eywa again because you werenât able to in your homeland. You donât really know why he insisted so much in talking to the chiefs now, and you canât help but wonder why he feels comfortable waking up the two most important people in his village for a stranger.Â
Soon enough, he comes back out from the marui, gesturing for you to come inside; you do, and youâre greeted by two very much awake chiefs, sitting with their backs straight as ever.Â
âOloâeyktan Arvak and TsahĂŹk Tsika,â Tonowari tells you, nodding to them, âIâll leave the three of you aloneâ keep an eye on that big bird of yours.â
âSheâs not a big bird," you whisper, too tired to fully protest. He pats your shoulder, looking a bit guilty, letting the woven sheet atop the pod close back behind you, âSure she isnât,âÂ
You remain alone with the chiefs â and Nala, who you realise just now hasnât followed Tonowari. Looking at the couple, you figure that the Metkayina must all have his same features. âSit,â Tsika gestures to the empty space in front of them, âand tell us everything.â
Recounting the fall of the Hometree is more difficult than you thought it would be â because even if itâs been almost a month now, the wound still feels fresh. They listen, not prodding for more information when you stop to take a deep breath to avoid bursting in tears, and the TsahĂŹk puts a hand over her mouth when you mention your father. âEytukan,â she murmurs, looking over to her mate. âHe came here when we called for the other TsahĂŹks.âÂ
At your confused face, Arvak explains, âA little over twenty years ago, our son fell sick. Rashes all over his body, convulsions, other symptoms weâd never seen before.âÂ
His wife takes a deep breath, âWhen nothing seemed to work and we lost all hope, Arvak chose to call the other clansâ TsahĂŹks and healers for help. The Taâunui sent a healer, the Aranahe some healing plants, and everyone pretty much did the same. But your father,â she pokes you in the chest, not in a mean way â in a way that says, the man youâre half a part of. âOloâeyktan Eytukan came here himself. Excused his wifeâs absence, told us she had just given birth to their third daughter and wasnât able to travel properly. He took a look at our sonâs state, and said that it probably was txumpaywll poisoning â until then, we didnât even know that its plants had started to grow on our islands. Made a salve for his rashes, concocted the antidote and left when he got better.âÂ
They bow their heads at you, âIt will be an honor to pay back Eytukanâs kindness. Tell us what you need, and weâll do anything in our power to help you.â
You beg them to raise their heads, embarrassed. âI just want some time with your clan,â you tell them, âlearn your ways with the creatures, how you move within the currents.â If Jakesully out of all people managed to learn the Omatikayaâs ways, you doubt it will be much harder for you. âI⊠Iâve lost contact with Eywa. I hope that learning your clanâs ways will help me in finding it again.âÂ
Arvak has got a pensive look on his face. Then, he says, âTonowari, I know youâre listening. You can come in.âÂ
The man sheepishly enters the marui again, sitting beside you, a little embarrassed. You raise an eyebrow â did he really think either of you didnât hear him? You mightâve not heard him approach when you were in the water, but back with your feet on steady ground, you wouldâve known how to spot him before he was even in your line of sight.Â
Nala squeals and throws herself on his knees, purring. Arvak tries to ignore her to his best abilities. âOur son Tonowari will teach you everything he knows about the reef,â ah, so thatâs why he didnât have any problem waking them up. Nice to know that the Oloâeyktanâs successor has seen your boob. On his part, Tonowari makes no protest. âHer training starts tomorrow. Go show her one of the vacant maruis â sheâll stay here for a while.âÂ
Ryâia is already sleeping when you and Tonowari detach your bags from her saddle, and you try your best not to gape at his biceps as they flex while he takes the heaviest woven baskets out of your hands. âDonât worry, Iâll take thoseâ you must be really tired.âÂ
He balances them on his side and shoulder as he walks you through the maruis â with the few still awake villagers peeking out of their tents to steal a curious look at you â only to stop in an empty one, carefully leaning the baskets down to the floor. You stare at the woven walls of your new home, at the mat on the floor and the little space reserved for the fireplace, thinking that maybe, just maybe, this can work.Â
You set down your bag as Tonowari stands back up from his knelt position, âTry to get some sleep,â he tells you quietly, âIâll come to wake you up tomorrow a little before dawn â itâs when the ilus wake up. If you need anything, thatââ he points to a nearby pod, ââis my marui.â
He stops for a moment and looks at you, sitting on the sleeping mat. âIâm sorry about your father and what happened to your people.âÂ
You press your lips into a thin line. âThanks.â You avert your eyes and wrap your shawl a little tighter around you. âUh⊠goodnight, Tonowari.â
He nods, a sad smile on his lips as he moves outside of the tent, still holding open the curtain serving as door. âGoodnight.âÂ
He closes the blind, and youâre left to your thoughts.Â
Tonowari laughs. âYour swimming form is funny.âÂ
You pout. âIf you're here to poke fun at my survival-level swimming form, Iâm sure Nala would be happy to teach me how to instead.âÂ
His laugh gets even louder, and he raises his hands up. âI said it was funny, not bad! Itâs like⊠watching a child take their first dive out of their motherâs womb.â
âAre you really saying that a kid might swim better than me?â
The son of the Oloâeyktan has at least the decency to stifle his chuckles now. âNo, no, Iâm sure youâll learn soon enough.âÂ
This morning, the villagers were astonished to find out that the chiefs had basically sneaked you into the village overnight â but sure enough, their spirits changed when you started distributing the gifts you had brought for them. The TsahĂŹk seemed pleased with the necklace your mother had made her, claiming it to be of beautiful manufacture, as her people raided your baskets for the shawls and armbands your friends had stitched for them. Yovo fruits were gone in a matter of seconds, and Arvak had to set aside the dried meat you brought to assure that everyone got a piece for dinner.Â
(As for Arvakâs gift, you gave it to him once the crowd dissipated. You told him it was from Toruk Makto, who even after proper Omatikaya training, unfortunately still had to work on his carving abilities. He took the dagger nonetheless, pleased that Toruk Makto himself took time out of his day to make something for him.)
Despite your gifts quietening the protests of your arrival, the villagers still stared a little too hard sometimes â no wonder, theyâve never seen a forest Naâvi before. Most of them are nice or at least cordial to you, but a few doubtful stares still linger as Tonowari tries to do his best in teaching you the ways of the Metkayina.Â
You start spending your mornings â from before dawn up until lunch â with the Oloâeyktan son, learning how to juggle the currents and hold your breath, and your afternoons with the clan elders, weaving baskets and learning how to stitch seashells into body pieces.Â
(The first time you asked if you could help weaving the growing side of the marui pods, they gasped, scandalized. Apparently, itâs strictly the menâs job around here.)Â
After a few days and horrendous tries, you finally manage to finish your first armband â Priya, an old woman wearing the feather chest piece that one of your friends had made, insisted on it. Itâs decorated with a few shells you managed to collect while diving with Tonowari, and as she inspects it closely, she hums, clearly pleased with your work. âIâm sure your mate will be delighted to wear this, one day.âÂ
You raise an eyebrow, surprised. âMy mate?â
The other elders nod convincingly, passing around your work. âIn Awaâatlu, the first piece a girl makes is always a stitched armband," she explains, revealing why she had pressured you so much in starting off with one. âThe mother makes sure to save it, and when the time comes, it will be given to her husband to wear. He, in return, will give her a carved comb, usually decorated with anything that pleases the woman.â
You think about it for a moment, âSo, the first ever piece the men carve is a comb, too?â
The women laugh like the mere thought is hilarious. âOf course not!â Priya hollers, âThe first piece a woman stitches is important because in her life, she will make numerous beautiful works. The men give them the most beautiful comb they make, because itâs already a miracle if they manage to make one singular, decent comb.âÂ
At this, you laugh with them, thinking about that wobbly knife Jake made for their Oloâeyktan. Then, you snort, âThis wasnât my first armband, though,â yes, you had to learn how to properly position shells and have them not fall off the strings, but this isn't your first time stitching.
One of the other women shrugs, âSo what?â She says, âItâs the first one you make here â as a future proper Metkayina â that counts as first.âÂ
Later on that night, back in your marui, you observe the armband and store it inside one of your woven travel bags, hoping that one day, the man you dreamt about will be able to wear it.
Whenever you are free from both weaving lessons and Tonowariâs constant nagging, you delve deep into the forest that the island offers, collecting herbs and fruits. Apparently, the Metkayina have learnt to make the most out of what the sea has to offer, and subsequently rarely explore the forest except for harvesting fruits. The seaside forest is a bit different from what you were used to, but fortunately the plants do not differ that much.Â
The first time you show the TsahĂŹk how you used to make disinfectant salves in the forest, she stares at the concoction like it has just clicked something in her brain. She smells it, tries it on one of the hunterâs light scratches and notes how he doesnât lament any stinging. âWhy donât you come with me and my tsakarems one of these days?â She asks finally. âIâm sure we could teach you something, as well as learn from your⊠peculiar ways.âÂ
The next day, you ask about the tsakarems to Tonowari as he gently hoists you up to an ilu. âHere, when the TsahĂŹk doesnât have a daughter, she takes various apprentices under her wing,â he explains, showing you how to place your feet to avoid falling off of the creatureâs back. âAnd then, either the most talented or the one the future Oloâeyktan chooses becomes TsahĂŹk, while the others go on to become healers.âÂ
You still fall off of the iluâs back, but it doesnât really matter â because Tonawari is there, ready to catch you, and immediately steadies you as you come crashing onto him. Youâll learn, he signs, still underwater. Do not worry, youâll learn.Â
The two of you have grown significantly closer since your arrival, and you try not to notice the way his touch tentatively lingers over your hips as he brings the both of you back to the surface. The two of you stare at each other then, his hands still atop your waist, and just as heâs about to say something, the moment is broken by Nala â and either sheâs obsessed with his biceps at least half as much as you are, or sheâs really just a little, fat bugger. You both laugh as she slobbers all over your face, his hands leaving your body, and you have to convince yourself that youâre not missing his touch to continue the riding lesson.Â
Your weak spots are the signing lessons and the apnea training, mostly because your complete attention on him is needed to actually learn something.Â
The first time he pushes his hand into your belly to show you how to breathe with your stomach, you thought you wouldâve been able to faint right here and there â or swoon, depending on how you see it. And whenever he shows you new signs and their meaning, unfortunately all you can think about is what exactly his fingers can do.Â
After lunch, you join the TsahĂŹk and the tsakarems in their dive for medical algae; a girl named Ronal shows you the best shells to pick to add to plants to make a paste, and the fishes that you have to follow to find a certain type of anemone with incredible healing properties. Sheâs a little ruffled by your presence at the lesson and you can tell, but you donât find it in yourself to judge her; youâre pretty sure that when Jake was learning your ways, you were far more suspicious of him than she is of you.
Weirdly enough, the TsahĂŹk comes looking for you when you donât show up to her lesson the day after. You come to find out that what you thought was a once-and-done offer was meant to be a more permanent position among the tsakarems, and now your evenings are filled with her lessons about spirituality and healing, too.
But the best thing about Awaâatlu is, by far, Eywaâs presence: sheâs everywhere, in the waters you swim into the bonfire Avrak lights when itâs time for dinner, and for the first time in months, you feel safe. Even Ryâia does, and itâs evident in the way she made herself a nest atop one of the highest trees in the forest.
Youâve made friends with the elders and two girls close to your age, Wali and Emâa, and the curious glances that the Metkayina sent you on that first day you spent here are nothing but memories now, as they have seemed to accept you as one of her own.Â
Ironically enough, you start noticing how close Ronal and Tonawari are just now that you know her.Â
Nothing much, but still noticeable, because most of the women in the clan are not close enough to him to be touching him â but she does. And for some reason, a lingering touch on his arm here and two grazing knees there are all it takes to ruin your night.Â
You know itâs stupid â a lot, actually. Youâd already figured that one day, Tonowari will have to choose a beautiful and probably Metkayina woman to mate with to become the TsahĂŹk when his mother wonât be able to be anymore. Ronal is smart, definitely the prettiest tsakarem out of Tsikaâs group, and above all, an established Metkayina in the clan. You, meanwhile, still have to properly mount an ilu, and Eywa forbids a skimwing.
When the fire dies out and itâs time for everyone to go to sleep, you sneak away from your friends to find refuge in that same rocky coast you landed on the night you arrived, and find yourself looking at the stars.
The next morning, after yet another slip down the back of your ilu, youâre ready to pack your bags and go back to wallowing in your pity in the remains of the Hometree, but Tonowari stops you by the tail and drags you back into the water, already hoisting you up the iluâs back again. âCome on,â he encourages you, getting on the saddle right behind you. âMake the bondâ I'll worry about not making you fall.â
Your eye twitches. Just how are you supposed to stay focused on the ilu when you can feel his chest pressing against your back, and his arms basically engulfing your own as he holds onto the saddle? He blinks at your staring, acting oblivious. âWhat?â
By some miracle, you manage to focus on your mount. The iluâs speed causes you to completely lean on Tonowari for support, but he doesnât seem to mind â the opposite, actually. One of his arms wrap around your midriff to keep you more stable, and while underwater you can feel his chin rest on your shoulder, when you rise back to the surface itâs his breath that you can feel on your cheek â and you know for a fact that heâs doing that on purpose, because heâs much taller than you, and he has to be crouching to be almost your height.Â
âSee?â He whispers in your ear. âItâs not so hard.â Well, of course it isnât with him assuring you donât fall. Slowly, you lift your head up to look at him, a brow raised in amusement. âNot with you here, mister.âÂ
Your sultry gaze makes him blush â an absolute hunk of a man who has surely had his fun playing with your closeness up until now, defeated by the batting of eyelashes. Unbelievable. His index finger traces a little pattern over your side, his eyes not leaving yours, âThen Iâll be here for as long as youâll need me.âÂ
Wali and Emâa tease you endlessly about your lessons with Tonowari, and although they are terrible at catching fishes with the nets, whenever the two of you are out in the water theyâre suddenly the most interested in fishing, even if their eyes are directed to anything but their supposed catches. They insist on rebraiding your hair in the Metkayina way when your braids start growing out, picking the prettiest shells and beads they can find to intertwine them in your strands. Considering you ditched your feather tops for their net-and-shell ones a while ago, if it werenât for the colour of your skin and your tail you could probably pass as a reef Naâvi without too much trouble.Â
But the main problem remains â you are not a Metkayina, not in the true sense of the word. And you are reminded of that as you see Ronal drag Tonowari away from the bonfire during dinner.Â
Your mood shifts visibly. You play around with the fruits on your bowl, completely bummed, and Emâa and Wali share a knowing look. âMaybe she just wants to talk to him,â the latter whispers, as her friend nods. âYeah, they butted heads allll the time when we were kids. Iâm sure he just did an ugly marui pod and she wants to point out every single mistake he made with the weaving.â
You huff a bitter laugh, âYeah, because Iâm sure that that kind of stuff requires an immediate discussion.âÂ
You go back to watching the stars atop the rocky coast that night â itâs a habit by now, because even if you feel happy here, you still miss your mother and sister. The thought of the three of you watching the same sky always manages to comfort you. Alas, now itâs helping you overcome how stupid youâre feeling, because you know that Ronal is perfect for Tonowari.Â
Sheâs been a tsakarem for longer than you, has grown up with him, knows how to ride an ilu perfectly and knows the way of the water like the back of her hand. She doesnât come from who-knows-where, where trees grow as tall as the stars and far away from their beloved ocean, doesnât have a useless tail for swimming, and doesnât need to resurface constantly for a breath of air as much as you do. Wanting to be with him is selfish, because youâre fully aware that thereâs already someone perfect for him out there.Â
Still, that doesnât mean it hurts less.Â
The next day you opt to avoid Tonowariâs lessons, staying close to Emâa and Wali to help them stitch a wedding gift for one of the villageâs couples on one of the empty, woven platform just above the water surface. The chiefâs son had looked confused when heâd found you with the women instead of in your marui, but his questioning glance was met with a shrug. âWell, they need this gift done before the end of this week. I wonât be able to ride an ilu properly any time soon, anyways.â
His shoulders sag a bit and he looks like a grounded ikran, but he still nods and goes his way, back to the beach. âWhat?â you ask Emâa when she stares at you, gaping. âHe looked so sad! Why didnât you go with him? Me and Wali couldâve finished this alone!âÂ
You go back to your stitching, fiddling with the strings. Your mind takes you back to the other day â the way his finger traced your skin â and still, a little part of you canât help but wonder how things would be if he didnât like another girl already. âWell, I wouldnât want to intrude between him and Ronal, you know.â Â
Your friends stare at each other, not knowing what to say â itâs not like they can rebuke without knowing what the two of them talked about â or did â last night.Â
You spend the day avoiding Tonowari like they pay you for it, running errands in the forest for the TsahĂŹk and finishing baskets with the elders, and by the time dinner time arrives, you canât evade him anymore without half the clan wondering what happened between you two.Â
Youâre sitting beside Emâa â whoâs arguing with Priya about what shells are best for a chest piece â when someone tugs at your braids as gently as possible. âHey,âÂ
Of course, itâs him. He looks a bit sheepish, a weird leather pouch over his shoulder as he lets your hair go and sits beside you, brushing a fallen braid behind your ear. âI like the way you did your hairâ itâs really pretty.â
Well, if Priya and Emâa werenât listening before, now they definitely are. Itâs a miracle Wali is on cooking duty tonight, because otherwise, youâd have three very nosey listeners instead of two. You blush, âUmâ really?â Damn him and the effect he has on you. One day, heâll be Ronalâs â but you decide that it surely wonât be a problem if you have his attention, just for tonight.Â
He nods, a smile gracing his features. âThe prettiest,â for some reason, it doesnât feel like heâs talking about the braids anymore, but youâre not brave enough to point it out aloud. âYou know, I was thinking that we could try again with the ilus tomorrow. Donât let a few falls discourage you â Iâm sure I fell a lot when I had to learn, too.â
You scoff, swatting him on the arm. âReally? Big, bad Tonowari beaten by a skimpy ilu?âÂ
He rubs the back of his neck, âWell, actually, I donât really remember â I was little â but Iâm pretty sure my bad memory is just because I probably hit my head really hard while falling.âÂ
That manages a laugh out of you â and itâs like he can go back to breathing properly, because he had really thought he had done something that offended you in some way or the other. He was more stressed than he let out this morning, when you refused to come with him to see the ilus.Â
The night goes on and you laugh like you havenât in months. He sure knows how to make great company when he wants to, and his arm â leaned on the sand behind your back â sometimes brushes against your spine, causing pleased goosebumps to etch over your skin. Eywa, you want him to be even closer so bad.Â
And itâs just when he leans down and scoots a little closer, his hand tentatively resting on your back, that you notice her.Â
Ronal is glaring at you from the other side of the bonfire, her arms crossed and her fingers tapping impatiently. The charm wears off â you remind yourself that you canât exactly pretend she doesnât exist for a night, because even if you donât owe her anything, you donât want to cause any rift between her and Tonowari. Itâs not like heâll ever mate with you, anyway.Â
So you gently pull away, trying to ignore his hurt stare as you get up from your previous sitting position. âIâ did I do something? Are youââ
âSorry, I just need a breather,â you disappear into the forest, but not before seeing Ronal stomping angrily towards Tonowari, surely ready to yell at him. Priya and Emâa cast worried glances at your back, but youâre too distraught to actually notice.Â
The rocky coast is quiet in contrast to the continuous chatter of the bonfire, as the sound of the waves is the only thing breaking the silence. You hug your knees close to your chest, staring at the stars, wondering what and how Neytiri is doing right now â cuddled up with Jake, no doubt. Well, if Ronal wasnât so perfect for Tonowari, you think youâd like being cuddled up to him, tooâ
A hand on your shoulder nearly makes you jump out of your bones â were you really so lost in your thoughts that you didnât hear the same man you were just daydreaming about approaching? Embarrassing. If your father were alive, you wouldnât hear the end of it.Â
Tonowari sits beside you again, and you hug your knees just a little closer. âI, um,â he stutters, and you canât believe a man of his size is able to get embarrassed. âToday, when I went hunting outside the reef, I got you something.â He grabs the pouch slinged over his shoulders, opening it to reveal a beautiful conch shell.Â
Youâve never seen one so big â itâs probably the size of your head, if not bigger. The outer shell is iridescent, reacting to the bioluminescence of the waves that crash underneath you, while the inside is streaked in blue and purple. Youâve never seen anything like it, and you gape at the sight. âTonowari, whatâŠâ
âI saw it and it just reminded me of you,â he explains, his cheeks a pleasant indigo. He holds it out for you to take, and if you werenât sure your eyes were playing tricks on you, youâd say his hands were trembling slightly. âAnd so, as it is tradition, I thought I shouldâve gotten it for youâ if you will accept it, that is.â
Youâre too dumbfounded by the seashell to really listen to him. You take it in your hands, tasting the weight of it, admiring its colors and wondering how something so beautiful could have reminded him of you. At last, you find yourself hugging it close to your chest, even if its spikes poke a little into your arm. âThank you, Tonowari,â you say, feeling as full as anyone can be.Â
He perks up, his ears twitching like heâs in disbelief, his tail moving happily in the sand. ââŠReally? You accept it?â
You raise an eyebrow. âWhy wouldnât I?â It's a gift, and you donât plan on giving it back to him anytime soon. Itâs too beautiful to even sit anywhere near his man-cave.Â
The grin he makes takes up his whole face. âOkay. Okay, thatâs great. Fantastic, even.âÂ
Gently, he touches your arm. âSo, how about riding those ilus tomorrow?â
The next morning, you manage to mount an ilu properly â without Tonowari behind you for support, that is. Itâs nothing much, but itâs still a step forward into life in the reef, and from the way your teacher claps and hollers, youâd think youâd tamed an akula.Â
Later that evening, youâre still helping Emâa and Wali with their wedding gift, as well as recounting last nightâs events to their flabbergasted faces. âA conch shell?â Wali asks to confirm, her thread and beads long forgotten.Â
You nod, mimicking the size of the shell with your hands, âYeah, a thing this big,âÂ
Emâa squeals, âNo way! I didnât think he was so straight forward!âÂ
Confused, you ask, âWhat do you mean? He was just being nice,âÂ
They look at each other, gaping, then back at you, âWhat do you mean, he was just beingââ
Theyâre interrupted by someone sitting down next to you without asking permission, and you blanch when you see Ronal. âOhâ oh, um, hi.â
She blinks at you like itâs no big deal, then picks up a spare thread and needle and begins helping you with the netting. âSo, what did Tonowari tell you last night?â
You hesitate. âOh, um, you know â lessons stuff. A few tips on how to balance my weight on the ilus better. Um⊠in aâ friendly way?âÂ
She perks up an eyebrow suspiciously, her ears twitching in annoyance. âLessons stuff, huh?â she repeats, stitching a shell in the most aggressive way youâve ever seen â even Neytiri bad-mouthing Jake never reached these levels of hostility. âIn a friendly way? Is that so?â
You share a panicked glance with your friends, laughing awkwardly. âYes?â It sounds more like a question than a reply, and thatâs probably what tips her over the edge. Her eye twitches, and she doesnât even bother to put the needle and thread where she found them as she rises back up to her feet while grumbling, âIf youâll excuse me,âÂ
âShe didnât even try to be sneaky,â Emâa mutters as soon as sheâs out of hearing range, âwhatâs up with her?â
Your stomach churns, âWell, itâs probably the fact thatââÂ
A loud slap echoes from the village, making the three of you flinch. A second slap ensues. When you look up, you notice that Tonowari is standing on the shore, holding his jaw with his cheeks already turning an ugly purple, and Ronal is marching away, fuming.Â
âŠYeah. You probably shouldnât have accepted that shell thinking that it wouldnât matter if he was going to marry her anyways.Â
You wonder what exactly is between them, but canât find it in yourself to ask him â mostly because you arenât brave enough to tell him that you like him. Emâa and Wali can keep telling you that thereâs nothing between them, but recent events continue to prove them wrong.Â
That night, at dinner, you mostly keep to yourself, deep in your thoughts, and even if Priya tries to drag you out of your misery, itâs all futile. For one reason or another the fruit youâre munching on tastes bitter, and youâre not sure if Tonowariâs absence around the bonfire helps or worsens your mood. Itâs only when Ronal herself pats your shoulder and gestures for the beach that you get out of your haze.Â
She tugs you by your arm down onto the shore, as silent as ever. âListen, Iâm really sorryââ
âDid you do anything you need to apologise for?â she asks, jumping off a rock. You stumble, âIâ well, I know you and Tonowari probablyââÂ
âStupid forest girl,â she huffs, not even looking at you, âthinks I want him like heâs some kind of trophy when heâs stupid like a babyââÂ
âHey! Thatâs not niceââÂ
She tugs you roughly one last time only to let your arm go as you reach where the ocean meets the sand, and you fall down in the water, wetting your â newly made, you must add â loincloth. You groan, rubbing your backside, âOwâ I get that youâre mad, but this seems a little too much to meââ
Ronal points to somewhere behind you, looking tired of you. âGo.âÂ
You blink, confused â and then you turn, only to catch sight of Tonowari, only a few klicks behind, mounting an ilu. He raises a hand to greet you, the smile on his face nervous, and you notice that heâs got that pouch slung over his shoulder again.Â
Hesitant, you turn to Ronal â looking for what, you donât know. She raises an eyebrow expectantly, âWhat are you waiting for? Go.âÂ
Youâre not sure you want to know what kind of game sheâs playing, but something tugs at your tail. Itâs Nala, you come to realize, and sheâs trying to drag you off to Tonowari.Â
You relent, following the zukzuk and mostly letting yourself get carried by the current until youâre in front of him. He gestures his fingers to his forehead as a salute and then holds his hand out to you, âCare for a swim?â
Still hesitant, you look at the ilu, then back at him. âNo baby akulas trying to eat me this time?â
He laughs, âNo, not where weâre going.â
You allow him to hoist you atop the ilu â because even if you're capable of doing it yourself, he always does that â and then climbs up in front of you, holding one hand behind your thigh to keep you steady and the other on the reins. âHold on tight.âÂ
You have to admit that riding at night is beautiful. Other than the moons and stars above you, the only light comes from the bioluminescence, and you remove one hand from his waist to brush the surface of the water, in awe. Nala swims beside you, holding up with the pace with some effort, but still looking very happy to see you and her carer together.Â
Tonowari stops the ilu when floating rocks and boulders â like a miniature-size Hallelujah Mountains â start to appear in the sky. âWhere are we?â
He turns to smile at you. âYou came here for Eywa, didn't you?â he asks, âWell, you could say we're going to visit her.â
He dives and you follow him, still a bit reluctant. He stops to let you catch up to him when he notices that youâre a bit behind him, a hand coming up to hold your smaller one â and suddenly, all of this feels very familiar. The fishes twirling around the two of you, the rocks and algae shimmering, the life you can feel buzzing within the waterâÂ
Tonowari lets go of your hand as you stare all around you, but itâs just to sign something. Come with me, our Spirit Tree is this way. His hand comes up to the small of your back, and if you werenât holding your breath, youâre sure you wouldâve sputtered.Â
If he notices the way youâre staring at him â like you just discovered a whole new person â he doesnât mention it. He just guides you through the swarms of nocturnal fishes until you see it â the Spirit Tree.Â
Never in your life you wouldâve thought that something like that couldâve existed underwater. It looks like itâs made out of dreams, shining upon anything that comes close to it, and Tonowariâs hand slowly leaves your back as you approach it â heâs letting you have some space, you realise.Â
Meeting the ancestors is like going back home â maybe itâs because in the spirit realm the Hometree and all the people that came down with it are alive, or maybe itâs because you didnât do it for a long time. Either way, once you come back from it â you have to, the air in your lungs is starting to feel less and less every second that passes â you come to find out that finally, you feel truly at peace.Â
You swim up to a rock covered in moss to catch your breath, taking a moment to admire your surroundings â youâve swam up to an open cave, it seems, painted and engraved with stories from the start of the Metkayina clan to the new days. Tulkuns, ilus and Naâvi twirl across the stone, set for an endless dance across generations, and you hear the water crinkle beside you.Â
âDo you like it?â
You nod, âItâs beautiful. Our Spirit Tree, back in the forest, doesnât really offer any space for carvings.âÂ
Tonowari nods, looking at the artwork scattered across the walls. âThis is the Cove of the Ancestors. Itâs where we bring the dead to rest, where newborns have their first contact with Eywa and ceremonies are held.â
You hum, already imagining him in full Oloâeyktan attire, his father passing down his spear to him. The man clears his throat. âI⊠I also brought you here for another reason other than the Spirit Tree â Ronal suggested I mightâve wanted to⊠clear things up a bit between us.âÂ
You feel your heart skip a beat. Ah, there it goes. âThereâs nothing to clear up,â you assure him, even if your chest feels like itâs imploding. âItâs okay. I know you have responsibilities â and we both know that Ronalâs the best tsakarem out there.â
He blinks, confused. A beat passes, slowly. Then, âBut I donât want Ronal.â
Oh. Oh.
You stutter, wondering if heâs joking â and from the way heâs looking at you, heâs not. âButâ I thought you two had a thing. She dragged you away from the bonfire the other night â sheâs always so close â she slapped you this morning just because we talked last night.âÂ
Tonowariâs laughter is sincere and without any malice behind it. âWhat? No!â
He removes his pouch from his shoulder, and opens it to reveal another conch shellâ even bigger than the last one. Itâs different, though: this one reminds you of him, all turquoise and light blue accents, and you wonder just how many hours he has spent looking for it. âHere in Awaâatlu, gifting a big conch shell symbolises the start of a courtship,â he explaines â embarrassed, perhaps? âI got so used to having you around that I forgot you werenât born Metkayina, and probably didnât know of the tradition. Honestly, I was too happy you had accepted it to ask myself if you knew about it â and for that, I owe you my apologies.âÂ
You soften visibly, but still hold a little resistance. âBut Ronalââ
âRonal is a friend,â he empathizes the word, âif anything, she sees me as a brother she canât get out of her hair. All this time, sheâs pressured me to make my move on you â before the other skxawngs in the village noticed all your qualities. That day at the bonfire? We kept arguing over what compliments I shouldâve used for your hair.âÂ
You blush, âI kept telling her I shouldâve just told you that you were beautiful â which was true â but she kept insisting for a subtler approach. And when we came back, you werenât there.â
You fiddle with the shells of your chestpiece, âWell, I thought you went to have some alone time with her or something,â you mutter.
Another laugh. âSo, you escaped to watch the stars every time we were a little too close? Iâm flattered that you kept looking at me,âÂ
You push at his arm, âThen why did she slap you this morning? Your cheeks are still swollen, by the way.â
He snorts, âOuli â the ceremonial tattooer â gave her a conch shell a week ago, and she has accepted it. She canât wait to be absolved from tsakaremâs duties, but they canât step down until the TsahĂŹk â and the future chief â choose who, one day, will guide the people spiritually.â Two of his fingers come up to your chin, holding your head up to stare into your eyes softly, âShe was waiting for me to choose you. I told her Iâd propose the shell to you yesterday, and then she found out that apparently, you saw it as a friendly talk. Needless to say, she was pissed.â
âButâ Iâm not even fully trained yet. Sheâs better atââ
He shakes his head, âI donât care what sheâs better at â I know youâll learn everything about our ways, eventually. Youâve already proven yourself worthy enough.â he raises the shell again, his hand moving up to your cheek. âSo, what do you say if we try this once more? I found another shell just to ask you again.âÂ
You take the shell in your hands, admiring it for a moment before throwing all your self-control out of the picture, jumping in his arms so abruptly that he falls down on his backside. The kiss is mind-shattering, his hug is everything you imagined it would be, and his body is just as warm as it was in the dream where you saw him for the first time.Â
The funniest thing is that once you pull away, you both are gasping for air â something youâve never seen him do, even after diving sessions that seemed to be hours long. Tightening the hold of your arms around his neck, you press your chests even closer, your noses brushing. âIs this the answer you wanted?â
He huffs a chuckle, his eyes already looking down at your lips again, âI donât knowâ seemed a bit too friendly to me. But maybe, if you do that again, say, three or four times more, I might grasp the concept fullyâŠâÂ
Youâre pretty sure the two of you couldâve stayed there kissing all night â and maybe even more than that, with the way you could feel him pressing against your crotch â if it wasnât for Nala, who, by the time you went back for seconds for the fourth time, already had enough and positively jumped over the two of you, breaking the sweet moment with barks and flaps of her tail.Â
That doesnât stop you from sharing quick, frenzy kisses whenever sheâs not looking, as by the time Tonowari accompanies you back to your marui, your lips still feel swollen and are surely flushed. âIâll see you tomorrow?â he asks you, pressing one last peck to your cheek. You nod, giving his hand one last squeeze, ââCourse,â
You decide to take things slowly â you still donât know the Metkayinaâs ways to their full extent, after all. The next few months are made of exhausting training, as now youâre the only tsakarem and still have to pass your iknimaya, and you donât want to let anyone down. You know the expectations that everyone has about the TsahĂŹk, and you surely have no intention to make Tonowari look bad as Oloâeyktan when the time comes.Â
And about him, he surely makes the intensive training easier.Â
Everytime he notices that youâre a little too stressed he makes sure to bring you a trinket from his hunts â let it be a weird rock that looks like a heart or a basket full of shells you can make your chest coverings with. He finds flowers to put in your hair during meal times, and just swings you over his shoulder like a pouch full of water when he decides that youâre overworking yourself a tad bit too much, dragging you to his marui for a well-deserved nap.
The day of your iknimaya marks your formal entry in the clan â one who later on becomes even more real thanks to your mating ceremony.Â
Itâs a quiet affair â quieter than it is usual for the son of the chief â but neither of you resent the lack of festivities or celebration, because the most important thing is that you are now mated for life. Per Metkayina tradition, you rebraid each otherâs kuru braids, picking beads and shells perfect for each other just for the occasion, and when the time to exchange your wedding gifts comes, you think back to Priyaâs words and wonder just who she married â because the comb Tonowari carved out of coral is nothing short of stunning.Â
âIâve never been to your forest,â he tells you as you brush the swirls of the flowers and trees etched along the smooth side, âbut Iâve tried imagining it so many times, I can only hope I brought it justice.â It may not be completely accurate to the forest, but the thought he put into it is more than appreciated nonetheless. In exchange, he wears your armband like itâs a badge of honor, even if itâs a little too tight on his bicep. (Not that youâre complaining â the sight is scrumptious, and you canât believe you get to wake up next to him for the rest of your life.)Â
You quickly settle in the marui Tonowari built with his father in the months of courting, and after a few months of blissful marriage, you donât even notice when your belly starts to grow.Â
You just assumed you were getting a little too comfortable in your new life with him and maybe put on a bit of weight â after all, the Metkayina are much softer than the Omatikaya, so maybe your bodyâs just adapting to the environment. You think so, until Tonowari points it out.Â
One morning, as heâs tying his braids back, he stops to look at you â still lying half-asleep on the mat you share, barely awake yet. He crouches to stare weirdly at your belly, then pokes at your bellybutton like heâs trying to study a new species of fish. âOeyĂ€ TanhĂŹ,â he starts â my star, a nickname he has taken a liking to calling you since your wedding.Â
You hum non-committedly. âYes, Ma Wari?âÂ
He keeps poking at your stomach, and keeps doing so even when you try to swat his hand away. âStop it, Tonowari, it tickles.â
He kisses your cheek, and continues doing so all the way to your forehead, brushing your hair away from your face as he leans his cheek over the top of your head. His chuckle is full of disbelief as he whispers, âMy love, I think youâre with child. Your belly is rounder and stiff.â
A moment passes. Then, âAre you calling me fat first thing in the morning, Tonowari?âÂ
A terrifying silence and a visit to Tsika later, itâs confirmed â you are pregnant, already four months along. Youâre confused, mostly because your people donât show up until five months, but one look at your hunk of a husband is all it takes to explain your questions.Â
Your second tattoo is to celebrate the pregnancy. While the first was above your eyebrow and went down to your cheek, this one cups the upper part of your belly and continues to your sides, still leaving some space for eventual other tattoos on your lower belly and hips.Â
At night, you sit on the step going onto the ocean of your marui, letting your feet float in the water as Tonowari sits on a banked canoe below, rubbing ointment on your freshly-done tattoo. âThe arch symbolises the first pregnancy,â he mumbles softly, âthe sides, protection for the firstborn. If another pregnancy occurs, a piece will be added here,â he brushes against the empty, rounded sides of your belly, âfor protection of the second born, and then one for the third, and so on.âÂ
You laugh, playing with one of his braids. âI think youâre getting too full of yourself, misterâ let me give birth to this one before talking about other children, will you?âÂ
He rests his head in your lap, almost purring when you start tracing lines over his face and scalp, âAnd when the child is born,â he adds, a hand still over your stomach, âthe father gets a tattoo over the heart, one that turns into a spiral as more children come.âÂ
A hum, âMaybe we should start thinking about names first, Ma Wari.âÂ
The agreement is, he chooses the name if itâs a boy, you choose if itâs a girl. He picks the name Aonung; you opt for Tsireya.Â
His fatherâs illness comes as a bitter surprise to all.Â
It starts with a cough, then heâs getting groggy when he moves a little too much, until no remedies the TsahĂŹk, you or the healers try to use work, as he lies bedridden in the marui him and his wife have shared for decades.Â
Tonowari is understandingly broken up about it â the man who he grew up idolizing, who offered you a refuge in your grief, who helped him build the marui where youâll be raising your child and every other one that might come after them. He wonât be meeting his grandchild, and even if Arvak insists for you to sleep properly in your own pod for the wellness of the baby, youâre not going to leave him or your husband alone in this difficult time.Â
You and your mate spend every night by his side as Tsika prays and chants for Eywa, not getting a blink of sleep herself, until the inevitable comes, and Arvakâs hand finally goes limp in hers.Â
The period of mourning doesnât seem like nearly enough for Tonowari to handle his grief â he spends every night curled up into you, resting his head on your lap, trying to find comfort in you and his unborn child. Heâs so big that if the situation was a little different, you wouldâve laughed; instead, you just hold him close and sing him to sleep.Â
But life doesnât stop for grief, and you know that well. Soon, heâs named Oloâeyktan and you TsahĂŹk, Tsika stepping down from her position with tears in her eyes as she gives you her headpiece.Â
Time in the village goes fast â people to heal, ceremonies to make, salves to concoct and prayers to hear. Months pass and your belly starts feeling impossibly big, so much so that the kids of the clan start following you everywhere to help their increasingly more tired TsahĂŹk. Tonowari always laughs when he sees them, going on about how Nala now has competition for the place in your heart reserved for children and animals, and the otterfin herself brings you a gift everyday â let it be a polished rock she found while swimming or a type of seaweed she thinks to be delicious.Â
The contractions start at night. You toss and turn in pain but try to avoid waking up Tonowari, just in case itâs a false alarm like the ones you had in the last three days. Itâs only when he nudges you with a gentle hand â hair still mussed a bit with sleep â and tells you that the mat is wet that you understand that your child is coming.Â
Tsika and Ronal â now one of the best healers in the village and happily mated to Ouli â donât spare any minute after your husband calls for them, and immediately have him carry you â now almost delirious with pain â to the birthing pond, where the water is warm and Eywaâs presence strong. The sigh you let out when your husband gently positions you against the rocky wall of it is one of pure bliss, and your clammy skin now surely doesnât give you any problem.Â
Aonung is born hours later at dawn, resurfacing out of the water by himself like tradition, crying out for his father to take him. Tonowari takes one good look at him, hears his strong wails and immediately passes him to your tired, waiting arms, âA boy,â he says breathlessly, brushing your braids out of your face, âa healthy, strong boy.â He presses his lips to your forehead, a tear slipping down his cheek, âThank you, OeyĂ€ TanhĂŹ, thank you.âÂ
âAonung,â you call out sobbing, as the babe stops his crying and latches onto your breast. âHi, my sweet, hi,â heâs a little bigger than Omatikaya babies, but you love him nonetheless. He nestles over your chest as soon as heâs done feeding, and chooses that thatâs now his favourite place to be.Â
In the next few weeks, your son reveals himself to be a real mamaâs boy. During the day, he stays curled up in your chest in the netted wrap that Emâa and Wali had made for you, and Eywa forbid Tonowari tries to help you by taking him â because he will cry until his ears beg for mercy, only to go back to being an angel as soon as he passes him back to you.Â
The children coo and poke at him when you bring him to meet them, and one of the older ones jokes about how he looks just like your husband, but can only stand you. You laugh at that, because it is true â Aonung is his fatherâs copy, and maybe thatâs why he likes you so much.Â
Itâs only when he reaches three months of age that you gather enough courage to ask Tonowari to visit the forest â not because youâre afraid heâll say no, but because youâre not sure if youâre ready for it. Itâs been almost two years since you left now, and while you arenât exactly ready to see the remains of the fallen Hometree again, you want Aonung to meet his grandmother and aunt, and your husband to see where you grew up.Â
Of course, the latter could never deny you anything, and a week later you get on Ryâia with him behind you and set sail for the forest of the Omatikaya. The village is left to Tsikaâs hands, and Aonung babbles happily against your chest as he flies for the first time in his life.Â
The village is in the same place it was two years ago â itâs just grown a lot since then, marui pods where the branches once werenât even steady enough â and you laugh when Ryâia leaves you immediately to go back to the ikransâ nest, ready to meet her old friends no doubt. You keep one hand over Aonungâs small back and the other in Tonowariâs palm, guiding him through the branches and groves as he stumbles many times.Â
You laugh, âHow does the forest feel, reef boy?âÂ
He pales as he stares down the branch youâre standing on, wondering just how many people die here from falling down into the void. âDangerous, my love.â
Neytiri screams when she first sees you â alerting all the other villagers about your arrival. She runs to hug you tight, not even noticing your son nestled between you two or the reef Naâvi awkwardly standing behind you until you pull back, a soft smile on your lips. âSister, itâs been so longââ
You laugh, nodding. âIt has been, sister. I wanted to introduce you to Tonowariââ the man salutes her with his fingers going to his forehead and then gesturing towards her as you take Aonung out of his wrap and into your arms, âand little Aonung.âÂ
You donât notice the way her face falls instantly. Your boy coos at her, gesturing his fat little arms towards her, and the moment is interrupted by Moâat, far more pleased than her elder daughter at the turn of events. When your sister takes her nephew in her arms and your mother hugs you, she stares at his turquoise skin, larger tail and wide forearms with worry, âHeâll never be able to move fully in the forest with these,âÂ
You chuckle, still in your motherâs embrace, âA good thing we live in the reef then, no?â
Her eyes skim over your sturdier arms, the tattoos over your body and the seashells braided into your hairâ and before you know it, she leaves Aonung in Jakeâs arms and storms off.
Being back home is nice â because while Awaâatlu became your home in the last two years, here in the forest still live your friends and family, and itâs where you grew up. Your mother spoils Aonung rotten and watches him as you go hunting on your ikran with Ninat and Peyral, while Jakesully â upon Tonowariâs insistence â tries to show him the way of the forest. Your friends chuckle every time they catch sight of your husband, asking if every Naâvi in the reef is as big as him, and if you know any Metkayina men willing to marry in the Omatikaya.Â
Neytiri, who you found out to be pregnant the day you arrived, mostly stays by herself, pondering, and whenever you ask if she wants to do anything with you she refuses, lamenting nausea or other pains.Â
You talk to Moâat about it, worried, but she just gives you a weird look. âSheâs grieving, child.â
Your eyebrows rise up to your hairline, âWhat do you mean, grieving? Who died?â
âShe thought you were still traveling,â she whispers, caressing Aonungâs curls while he munches on the beads of your braids, âand that once you were ready, you wouldâve come back to living here. Seeing you with a mate and a son⊠it broke her heart, because now she knows youâre not coming back.âÂ
You think back to all the times you two talked about how your children would grow up together, being best friends and close just like you did â and your heart breaks a little, too, because in all of this, you hadnât considered how she would take the fact of you never fully returning to the forest.Â
That night, you leave Aonung with Tonowari â as your son has finally started to appreciate his father a little, too â and go looking for Neytiri at the Tree of Souls, knowing that at this hour, she usually prays and chants her songcord.Â
She stops when she hears you approach, her ears perking up. You smile softly, âI thought we could pray togetherâ like the old days?â When your father was still alive, your sister still arranged to Tsuâtey, and the both of you were less complicated. When she could still become TsahĂŹk, and you had no reason to.Â
She scoffs a little, âLike the old days,â she mutters, âam I supposed to pretend that you didnât turn your back on me?â
You grimace, taking a seat next to her, âTiriâŠâ
âDonât âTiriâ me,â she hisses, âyou have no rightâ I was waiting for you. Waiting for you to come backââ her voice cracks â pregnancy emotions; you know them too well. âFor you to come back here and marry one of our men like our ancestors did for centuries. Instead, you marry a reef Naâvi andâ and move Eywa knows how far from here without saying anythingââ
She breaks down, and you shush her gently, cradling her head on your shoulder. This feels familiar, because when you were kids, she was usually the one comforting you. âWhy did it have to be the Oloâeyktan?â she cries, her tears wetting your skin, âCouldnât you find someone less important â someone you could come here to live with?â
You shake your head, pressing your cheek on the crown of her hair for comfort, âI didnât choose him, Tiri,â you say softly, âI fell in love. Thatâs not something one controls, and you, out of all people, should know that.â
Still in denial, she sobs harder, âWhat will it be of our kids?â she asks, pressing a hand over her slightly swollen belly, âWill they grow up as strangers, like theyâll be to our father and sister? Will they look at their aunt and wonder if sheâs an outsider?â
âNever, sister, never,â you hush, âweâll visit â you and Jake can visit, too.â
As her cries die down, she asks, âDoes the thought of living here still scare you so much?â
And for that, to your horror, you donât find an answer.Â
Tsireya comes a little over a year after her brother, and this time, she looks like you. She still has her fatherâs Metkayina features â the tail, her forearms â but one good look at her face, and it doesnât take a TsahĂŹk to guess that sheâs your daughter. Ironically enough, she prefers her father's chest over yours â unless weâre talking about feeding time, because, letâs be real, Tonowari will never be able to beat you at that for obvious reasons.Â
Aonung has started to waddle a while ago, and has been restless since. He goes from your marui to his grandmotherâs, visiting Ronal and Emâa on the way, falling at least twelve times in the meantime. He loves swimming with you and his father, constantly bugs his sister when sheâs stealing the milk that heâs convinced should be his, and plays with Nala on the shore when the zukzuk starts following him around.Â
Heâs a sweet boy who brings you flowers and pieces of fruit when he notices the smallest frown on your face, and loves cuddles from mom and dad before and after going to sleep. And even if heâs a little mean to his sister sometimes, you know he loves her very much from the way he begs you to let her swim with him or wants to share his food with her.Â
You visit Neytiri a few more times, but the visits slowly come to an end when you realize that she has no intention of ever coming to the reef to see the life youâve built here. While Moâat visits frequently, bringing the children gifts and swarming them with affection, your older sister seems to have accepted the fact that in her eyes, youâll never be truly close again.Â
You accept the notion with far more ease than you could have ever imagined â because you have a family now, and people that look up to you for guidance. If Neytiri doesnât want to see that, itâs okay; youâll never manage to love her any less for it.Â
The kids grow quicker than you realize, because soon, Tsireya is waddling behind Aonung too, and the excruciating process of weaning her off starts.Â
Her brother had been even more difficult, so youâre actually quite relieved to see that she at least does not cry herself to exhaustion every night like he did. But every time she lets out the smallest whimper, you find Tonowariâs big eyes boring into yours, with that look that says, we could resolve the problem by just having another baby. You always glare at him when he suggests that, because two kids under three already feel like more than enough now, and you have no intention of having another one so soon.Â
But as she often does, Eywa has a different plan for you.Â
Tonowari hurriedly wakes you up one night as youâre resting on the sleeping mat, nearly asleep as the kids quietly snore beside you. Heâd been out all evening to help his mother with some herbs while you watched the children, so youâre worried to find him so distraught. âOne of the Taâunuiâs women died in birth,â he whispers, careful not to wake up Aonung or Tsireya, âthey need to feed him, but none of the women in their village is nursing. Could youâŠ?â
He doesnât even have to ask, really, because five minutes later youâre sitting in the TsahĂŹkâs tent, nursing little Rotxo while the Taâunui Oloâeyktan shares worried whispers with Tonowari. The newborn is a little chunkier than Aonung and Tsireya were, but that just means that his mom, while she could, took good care of him.Â
âHeâs an orphan,â you hear the chief say, âhis dad died a little while ago on a hunt, and heâs only got his grandmother now â but frankly, sheâs old, and I doubt sheâll be able to take care of him for longâŠâÂ
The solution seems clear in your eyes, and after talking to Rotxoâs grandmother about her new place in the Metkayina village, you introduce Aonung and Tsireya to their new little brother. They donât ask why you didnât have a big belly like the other pregnant women in the village, or why his skin isnât a little bluer like theirs, and instead take to him instantly, putting shared efforts to find nice shells and smooth little rocks to put in the woven crib where he naps.Â
Everyday, you bring him to his grandmother so that she can have a piece of her daughter back with her, and slowly, she takes a liking to your children as well. They start calling her grandma like they do to Tsika and Moâat, and you donât miss the way she seems to be rejuvenated by being around such lively children.Â
âNo more kids, huh?â Tonowari teases you gently one evening, the sun fading into the horizon, as you breastfeed little Rotxo while watching Aonung and Tsireya play with ilu cubs in the water.Â
You swat his arm, so tired but so full of love. âOh, shut up, Tonowari. The next kid we have, weâll have in at least ten years.âÂ
He raises an eyebrow, amused, âOh? So, we will have another kid?âÂ
You blush â incredible how after having two of his kids and being bare for him so many times, he still manages to get a reaction out of you. âMaybe.â Â
He hums, an arm wrapping around your shoulders as he presses a gentle kiss to your temple. âYeah? And what do you want to call them, if itâs a girl?â
You look down to little Rotxo, his hand opening and closing around the curve of your breast, his chunky belly pressing against your ribs. Itâs ridiculous â the way Tonowari can get you to think about another baby while already having three small children.Â
summary: you are loâakâs twin however the two of you are like yin and yang. while loâakâs wild personality causes him to catch the eye of a certain metkayina princess, your soothing and nurturing nature leads to a blossoming relationship with her brother.
Since conception you and Loâak were complete opposites. You were older and your birth was easy going but quickly turned into a mess the second it was Loâakâs turn to enter the world. You were easygoing and listened to your parents, while he was always running into trouble. Him a warrior, you a future Tsaâhik wanting nothing more than to heal through Eywa. Not that it mattered though, you were his other half that he couldnât live without.Â
The best thing about the two of you was that there was no competition between yâall despite how differently the clan viewed each of you. You were seen as an angel and the superior twin, though you never failed to shut the comments down when you heard them. It used to really bother Loâak for obvious reasons but as he grew older it bothered him less because at least someone was on his side defending him. He secretly also accepted the fact that you were better than him because it was true and looked up to you.Â
The day your parents came to the Sully kelku and told everyone that you had to move away due to the return of the sky people it broke your heart. This was your home. Your people. Your way. Moving to the Metkayina clan and adjusting to their ways was as terrible as you had expected. While they were less rude to you since you inherited more of your mothers pure naâvi looks, they were not so kind to your twin who had more of Jakeâs avatar ones.Â
There was one boy in particular who loved to pick on your family. Aoânung, the son of Tomowari and future Oloâeyktan of the Metkayina, fueled by his mothers sharp words, viewed you as freaks, but when his eyes first caught yours, his breath slowed and his heart started beating so hard that it felt like it was going to pump out of his chest. He swallowed thickly. You were the most beautiful girl heâd ever seen and ever will see in his entire life. Â
No matter how he felt about your family, he couldnât stop the way his eyes scanned over you. He noticed the nervous look on your face, the several constellations of freckles that adorned you from your cheeks to your stomach, and even how your hair framed your face. He was absolutely smitten by you.Â
You met his eyes and started to blush. He was so cute. He offered a small wave that made you feel slightly better about your situation. âHi,â you whispered back with a small smile. Aoânung smiled back and if he could without embarrassing himself, he wouldâve gripped his chest at how much your smile affected him. From that moment on, you were his.Â
At first, it started with little smirks and light touches that you couldnât help but overthink and blush about at night. You were always excited to train with the Oloâeyktanâs children⊠training with him. One day you were the first one out there and was admiring the shore when someone came and sat by you. âHey pretty,â Aoânung breathed out, facing you with his head on his knees.Â
Your brain malfunctioned at how ethereal he looked. He was perfect. âHi ânung! Why are you here so early?â you smiled back, looking away before a blush could expose your little crush. He shrugged his shoulders in response. âJust felt like it I guess,â he pondered.Â
He didnât just feel like it. He was out doing his morning chores and saw you sitting all alone⊠too alone for such a pretty girl. God, Aoânung swore he was done for because of the way the morning sun wrapped around your features. You looked like a goddess, and he was ready to worship the ground you walked on.Â
You sat on the shore line enjoying each other's company bantering back and forth. Aoânung of course threw in a flirty statement here and there because he loved the way your ears went back and flushed with a darker purple. He could watch it all day.Â
âDo you want to learn how we communicate under the water?â he suggested to you wanting an excuse to hold your hands. You eagerly jumped at the opportunity to get an edge on your siblings. However, it was not as easy to pick up on as you thought it would be.
You groaned in frustration and furrowed your brows for the nth time as you kept messing up the new word that Aoânung taught you. He laughed at how cute you were but then leaned over probably closer than he needed to be. He grabbed your hands and guided them to the right position, âHere. This is how you do it, understood?âÂ
He didnât miss the way your breath skipped and how your tail flicked side to side. âA-ah yes,â you muttered out before taking your hands back to move your hair behind your ears. âAw donât get all shy on me forest girl,â he chuckled out with a small smirk on his face. He still had his morning voice so it came out deeper and rougher than he intended which made it worse. He knew what he was doing and my god was it working.Â
You were incredibly embarrassed and looked away now. This bothered Aoânung. Gently caressing your face to look at him, he gave you a reassuring smile before saying, âDonât do that. You are so beautiful that it pains me not to see your pretty face.â His words are so sincere that you help but be in awe of the man in front of you being so earnest about how he viewed you.
After that, you both sat in the comfort of each other's silence until the usual group found the both of you. This routine continued for the rest of your stay at the Metkayina. You sitting alone, Aoânung joins you, flirting, being flustered, and on most occasions caught red handed but neither of you would have it any other way.
Over time Aoânung successfully had you completely enamored with him. It was the least that could happen considering he was wrapped around your finger and completely whipped for everything you did. However, he was still teasing your siblings for the same things that he completely fell for in you.Â
You usually overlooked it until one day you and Neteyam had to defend Kiri and Loâak from Aoânung and his goons calling her a freak. As soon as he saw the betrayal and hurt on your face, Aoânungâs ears immediately flush against his head and he lowered his line of vision. When you hissed at them, he knew he fucked up.Â
While Neteyam did most of the talking due to your usually calm demeanor, it did not fall onto deaf ears when you let out, âHow could you?â Everyone knew who it was for. Not waiting for a response from him, you grabbed your twinâs hand and headed to your family marui. Loâak however had different plans. Messing with Kiri, yes absolutely wrong. Hurting his twin, dead fucking wrong.Â
You already knew what Loâak was up to and continued walking not wanting to be in the ruckus when they were inevitably caught. A small smile appeared though when you heard Loâak say, âItâs called a punch, bitch!âÂ
Shaking your head to try to shake the pain you felt away and clear your head, you headed back to prepare a salve for your siblings to tend to their wounds with when they got back. While grinding the herbs in your mortar, your mind went a mile a minute. Did he think you were a freak too? Was everything he said a lie? Does he really think I am pretty?Â
You were broken out of your thoughts when your father walked in with your siblings in tow already lecturing them as they came into the marui. You offer a look of comfort to your brothers knowing they were going to get in the most trouble. You didnât pay attention to their conversation focusing on finishing the salve.Â
They rushed out after being told they had to make peace with Aoânung. A sigh of annoyance left you as you now had to chase your patients down to tend to their bloodied lips and bruises. Later on, you were sitting on the beach devastated by how mean the boy you fell for could be. You heard people yelling for Loâak. This sent you into full blown panic. What happened to Loâak?
Running fast to find your father only to learn that Aoânung put your twinâs life in danger by taking him beyond the reef. The worst part was that he hadnât returned. You were heart broken and scared. You cried outside your marui while they searched for what felt like hours.Â
You heard footsteps approach your sobbing figure but did not bother looking up thinking it was Neteyam or your father. âI am so sorry. I never meant-â Aoânung began before being cut off by you. âNo. I do not want to hear it from you right now. I donât understand how you could be so cruel,â you spit at him.Â
Aoânung felt his heart shatter into pieces. He knew that it was his fault that you were treating him like this. He truly never meant any harm to Loâak thought. He never meant to hurt you. He fell to your feet and begged for your forgiveness. âPlease. I see you. I am so sorry. It won't happen again. Please give me a second chance, pretty girl,â Aoânung pleaded with you.Â
You looked down at him and walked away. I see you. The amount of times you fantasized about those words leaving his mouth before everything went to shit. You scoffed but deep down you still cared for him and it still affected you the same.
Loâak did end up coming back safe and life went back to normal. Well maybe not normal for you and Aoânung but generally normal. Your siblings got really close to him but for some reason you kept yourself at a distance. You ignored and avoided him at all costs even though it was killing you to do so.Â
In your absence, Aoânung was not the same and was frankly losing his mind. You filled his every thought and were all he talked about to your brothers, his sister, Rotxo, honestly any one who would listen. Frankly were getting tired of hearing how he fucked up and how much he missed you. Most of all though, they never wanted to see you looking as sad as you were ever again.Â
They also missed hanging out with their sister outside of training due to you not wanting to be around Aoânung. You were always helping around in the village as a healer and started Tsaâhik training with Ronal again. You spent your nights on the beach depressed until everyone went to bed instead of in the morning with the man you loved.
One night, Loâak joined you on the beach. The water was still breathtaking at night. âYou know that we hate seeing you like this right?â
You looked at him confused. âWhat are you talking about Lo,â you whisper like a lost child. You felt his arm wrap around your shoulder and bring you close to his chest.
Now having you in his arms, he continues, âYou have been moping around since you stopped hanging around that skxawng, Aoânung. Yea he is an idiot and we had a rough start, but everything worked out in the end.âÂ
Being met with silence, Loâak sighs. âLook. What I am trying to say is that you donât have to feel guilty for loving him,â he whispers. That was the last thing that was said that night before you turned in for the night.
The next day, you were walking to Ronalâs marui to complete your lesson of the day. âGood morning Tsah-â you greeted the well respected woman only to be stopped in your tracks seeing the one you have been avoiding.Â
âAh I mustâve gotten the times wrong. Forgive me Tsahik. I will come back later,â you inform her with a respectful degreet. At your words, AoâNungs ears deflated and his tail wrapped around his leg.Â
Turning to leave the marui, a very distinct growl was heard from behind you that made you pause. âThat is enough. You will stay in this marui. You will make up. I am tired of this childish behavior from the both of you,â Ronal announces with a grit that does not leave room for argument.
With that being said, she exits the room leaving the two lovers in awkward silence.Â
You finally meet his gaze for the first time in ages only to be met with his beautiful sea foam colored irises flecked with darker blue green tones. They were just as beautiful as you remembered.Â
He cautiously approached your still figure eyes glancing from your hands back to you silently asking for permission to embrace them. You give him a nod and immediately feel his large hands envelope your own.Â
When he began to speak, his voice held so much emotion that it moved your heart. âY-n.. I know that I am a skxawng. I do not deserve your forgiveness but please find it in your heartâŠâ he trails off before groaning, âbecause fuck.. I donât think I could live without you. Every day without you is punishment.â
He moves closer to the point that your foreheads meet. Aoânung speaks again softer this time, â...because you are my heart. my everything⊠my future⊠my past⊠but most importantly my present. I wish to mate with you one day⊠to make you my Tsa'hik, my partner in everything I do. So please forgi-â
You had heard enough. Your lips cut him off when they gently push against him. There was no need to ask for something he already had.Â
âI see you Aoânung,â you whisper with his face in your hands. Aoânung immediately breaks out into the biggest smile. You beam back at him because you missed the way his smile brightened up the whole room.
âI see you, my pretty girl,â he echoed.
You spend the rest of the time catching up and cuddling together like someone was about to separate you again. Well that is technically correct as Ronal came back eventually to start her lesson. A small grin on her lips as she takes in how happy her son looks with her most exceptional student.
âAlright Aoânung you need to leave my student alone if you actually intend on making her your Tsa'hik,â she teases the two with an undertone of seriousness. He reluctantly let go but did not leave her side the whole time and after.
EXTRA:
Ronal finds her mate giving him a nod signaling that everything is okay with Aoânung now. Tomowari sighs with relief.Â
âFinally. You would have thought that he was dying with his behavior,â he says.Â
Ronal gives him an amused look. She would never pass up the opportunity to poke fun at Tomowari. âYou know. I never thought that there would be anyone that could be as whipped as you are but our son has you beat. He definitely gets it from you,â she snickers at Tomowariâs dumb founded face as she leaves once more to attend to her duties.
author's note:
EEP thank you for reading my first fanfiction ever on Tumblr! I would really appreciate any feedback or suggestion to improve the story or my writing. MWAH see y'all next time
SUMMARY, who knew that you â the shyest girl in the clan, could bring the future oloâeyktan to his knees?
â°â†WARNINGS, aoânung is down bad for reader/fluff/suggestive/established relationship/lots of touching/kissing/aoânung is a good boyy//reader is kinda giving heleana from hotd I love it!!
â„ requested by an anon, hope you like it angel <3
Youâre shy, maybe a little too shy. While everyone your age in the clan enjoys hunting and fighting, youâd rather spend your day sitting by the ocean or picking out flowers, searching for the prettiest elements to turn into accessories for your hair.
No one ever judged you for it though, not when most of the time, you had a large shadow standing behind you that belonged to no one other than the future oloâeyktan â otherwise known as your boyfriend, Aoânung.
At first, it came as a surprise to many when you and the prince of the reef started dating, he had a reputation for being a âtough guyâ, while you were one of the quieter girls with peculiar interests. Before the two of you became a pair, members of the clan imagined that Aoânung would find someone who matched his fierce character, perhaps a skilled hunter like himself but turns out, you were just the thing he needed, as well as the only person who could see right through his âtoughâ act.
The differences between the two of you were evident, yet they only drew you closer together. Although you barely spoke, even before your first interaction, he seemed to know a lot about you while you on the other hand, knew very little about him, who was significantly louder than you.
The future oloâeyktan had an outgoing personality, accustomed to always being the centre of attention â you, kept to yourself and relished the peaceful moments by the ocean. He was in the middle of every festival, you were sat in the corner, entertaining yourself with a small creature that rested in the palm of your hand. What the metkayina prince appreciated most about your shyness, was how no one else was able get a proper conversation out of you, not the way he could.
Aoânung would lay leaned back in the sand, his eyes full of admiration, as you would run over to him, excited to show him the beautiful pieces you had collected. He was never a listener, no, he could talk for hours but when it came to you, everything flipped, suddenly nothing he had to say mattered anymore because all he wanted was to listen to you speak.
He could never deny you either, not when you looked at him with those big glossy eyes of yours, so anything you asked for, he would do. The first time his family witnessed this, Ronal thought her pregnancy was causing her to see things while Tonowariâs eyes widened in disbelief at his sonâs obedience to his girlfriend, silently attempting to communicate across the table with Tsierya, but she didnât seem amused. By now, all of Awaâatlu had noticed the change in Aoânung who would follow you around like a lost puppy.
Some might even say he was whipped â not to his face, of course. His behavior never softened for anyone else, if anything, it grew harsher every second he wasnât with you, the only one who could unlock that gentler side of him.
Although no one mentioned it out loud, many members of the clan admired you for somehow bringing a man, as stubborn as yours, to his knees with just a bat of your lashes.
ââ .âŠ
Aoânung has been annoyed all day, shouting at his friends for the smallest mistakes during training as if he already was oloâeyktan. However his best friend, who has known him his whole life, immediately connected the dots that it had something to do with you.
âHave you seen her today, bro?â
Rotxo asked, questioning the clearly irritated man next to him, slightly leaning away in case Aoânung would smack him again for mentioning you.
Luckily enough, he didnât.
âNo.â He sighed, his response bland but still far better than the physical assault he had bestowed on the shorter boy beside him earlier. Rotxo knew that the only way to get his friend out of his bad mood (so that he couldnât take it out on him anymore) was to encourage him to leave his duties a bit earlier and find you, his anchor.
âIâll cover for you, go talk to her cuz.â He smiled, not because heâd done good deed for his best friend, but because heâd finally be able to speak freely without being on the receiving end of a death stare each time he opened his mouth.
Before heading toward the direction of where he knew youâd be, Aoânung stopped and patted the shorter male on the shoulder in gratitude, âThanks man, I owe you.â Loâakâs and Spiderâs slang really did seem to be rubbing off on everyoneâŠ
đâïž to sum it up,
no you = angry aoânung = everyone scared
On the other hand, unlike Aoânung whose entire day depended on whether you chose to acknowledge him or not, you have been enjoying your afternoon. The sunlight flickered across your back as you took small steps into the ocean, carefully slipping in, your mind focused on retrieving that seashell you had set your sights on. The water closed around you like a second skin, rising from your ankles to your waist as you waded deeper.
Ignoring the fact that you were not the best swimmer, you continued to go more and more into the cool water â reminding yourself of how wonderful that seashell would look on Aoânungâs loincloth (which was the only reason you were doing this) for motivation. Taking one last steady breath, you fully dove beneath the surface, the sounds of everything around you dissolving into a muted hush as you moved closer to your goal.
You werenât someone who took risks by any means, more like someone who, once set their mind on something, acted on impulse, which tended to really bother your boyfriend who worried for you. You could almost hear his voice in the back of your head telling you to turn back, but with the water pulling at you and your prize somewhere below, your instincts took over, turning him out and guiding you deeper without any thought. After all, what kind of metkayina were you if you couldnât handle a little bit of water?
A smile formed on your lips when you finally spotted the seashell, reaching for it with your hand â you were so close, just a stretch away, only a small lean forward from making the vision of Aoânung in a sexy loincloth that matched yours, a reality. So close justâ
Suddenly, a voice from the shore broke through the peaceful silence of the ocean, making you pause mid dive as you questioned whether it was real or your imagination. Unfortunately for you, it was very real. You must have jinxed it with how much you were thinking of him because you recognised the distorted voice calling out to you as the one of your boyfriendâs. Was he not supposed to be on duty?
Your heart began to race when you heard familiar sound again, which was exactly the opposite of what should be happening while you were underwater. You urgently kicked upward, swimming toward the surface, already aware of the scolding that awaited you, that is if he can resist giving into your glossy eyes, which he never usually could. Ewya had gifted you with big, doe-like eyes, and you knew just how to use them to get what you wanted.
Peeking your head out of the water to gasp for air, you see Aoânung who is visibly pissed, jumping into the water after you. Only then did you realise just how far youâd actually swum â you could say that your boyfriend was sometimes great motivation. With each deliberate stroke, you moved closer to your lover, meanwhile planning on how you could manipulate him into not being upset with you.
The feeling of a warm hand colliding with your hip made you shriek, immediately snapping you out off your thoughts. For a moment, you almost forgot that Aoânung was known as the fastest swimmer in the clan for a reason.
âAoânung!â You exclaimed, pretending you hadnât noticed the irritated expression on his face. He looks so hot when heâs mad.
Instead of greeting you wish a kiss like he typically would, he firmly grabbed you by the waist, trapping your body against his.
âYawne,â he said sharply, âhow could you be so reckless?â
âIââ
He quickly cuts you off, his grip around you tightening, âNo, I leave my duties early thinking we could spend time togther but instead I find you half way outside the reef.â
He takes a deep breath, trying to his best to keep his composure so he doesnât accidentally raise his voice, âDo you have any idea how many Akula lurk here at this time of day?â
Not giving you time to answer, Aoânung tried to continue, but the moment he met your glossy gaze, he froze. You were looking at him with a soft expression, fluttering your lashes as if daring him to say what he had been about to.
Donât give in Aoânung, donât give in, she could have hurt herself, this is serious.
Fuck, but sheâs too cute
One of his hands lifted slowly, cupping your face, instant regret consuming his features, âPaskalin, Iâm sorry, I was just worried that you couldâve been hurt, IâI would never forgive myself if that happened and I werenât there to save you.â
You put your smaller hand over his, gently caressing it with your thumb in a comforting way, before opening your mouth to speak, âIâm sorry, Ma Aoânung you were just worried, itâs my faultââ
To prevent you from blaming yourself any further, he crashed his lips against yours, using it as an excuse to pull you closer to his chest. If there was one thing the prince of the reef hated more than anything, it was you putting yourself down when in his eyes, you were an angel and could do no wrong.
âNothingâs your fault, weâll just forget this happened, tanhi.â He murmured into the kiss, not knowing that this had all been apart of your plan. At hearing his words, you tried your hardest not to grin so instead you just kissed him back with even more passion, playing with his hair as your tounges fought for dominance. You secretly loved how âwhippedâ your boyfriend was for you, you could do as much as bat your lashes at him and heâd be on his knees, calling you his princess â his future TsahĂŹk.
You whine as he pulls away to take a breath. This time, when he leans in itâs not to kiss you, instead Aoânung nuzzles his face into your neck, one of his hands sneakily travelling to the curve of your ass to embrace you into a hug. Now that he couldnât see your face, you smirked to yourself at how oblivious your boyfriend was to your techniques.
âMhm, you smell so good, princess.â He whispers, inhaling your scent. The feeling of Aoânungâs hot breath against your skin causes your tail to instinctively curl around his muscular leg, making him let out a small chuckle. âSomeoneâs eager.â
You met his comment with a death stare, so to please you, he immediately wiped the smirk from his face, an act of obedience that earned him a kiss on the cheek.
âSo paskalin, what made you swim all the way out here?â He asks teasingly, bending down to place kisses on your shoulder while awaiting for your answer.
âWell I really wanted to get this seashellââ
He didnât wait for you to finish your sentence, his posture snapped straight, his gaze locking onto your pretty, glossy eyes as if silently urging you to tell him exactly what you wanted needed him to do.
Without you even having to say a word, his hand gave your ass one last gentle squeeze before he dived under the water, determined to fetch the seashell you asked for.
Who wouldâve guessed that the tough, mean to everyone, future oloâeyktan was secretly such a good boy?
summary aonung has been courting you, but youâre a little oblivious to the fact.
Pairing aonung x Metkayina!reader
wc 7.2k
a/n hi guys, if I havenât done your request by now Iâm probably just really not able to write it. I get writers block so bad. But feel free to send in different ones! I love your ideas and inspiration
The sky had deepened into a bruised plum color, the vast expanse above bleeding from the burning orange of an eclipse sunset into the cool, velvety indigo of true night. Around your thighs, the bioluminescence of the shore was beginning to wake up, greeting the darkness in tiny, flickering pulses of neon blue beneath the surface. The tide was low, revealing the skeleton of the reefâa labyrinth of coral and sandbars that usually lay hidden beneath the turquoise waves.
You shifted the weight of your woven basket, resting it firmly against the curve of your hip as you waded through the knee-deep water. The woven palm fronds dug slightly into your skin, damp and rough, but the weight was satisfying. It was a physical promise of the hours of creation ahead; a heavy basket meant a busy night at the loom, crushing shells for pigment and threading beads for the clanâs ceremonial sashes.
A few yards away, the soft splashing of water broke the rhythmic lapping of the tide. Loâak and Tsireya were lost in their own world, a bubble of laughter and shy touches that seemed impenetrable to the outside world. Loâak was submerged to his waist, his tail splashing playfully behind him as he ducked down, his movements unrefined but enthusiastic, to scoop up a handful of polished stones.
"For you," he mumbled, his ears flushing a dark violet as he offered them to her.
Tsireya giggled, the sound like the wind chimes her mother once strung around awaâatlu, and their heads leaned close together as he showed her his finds. It was a common sight now; since theyâd started courting, Loâak had become a permanent fixture at Tsireyaâs side. By extension, Aonung had stopped trying to drown him, or at the very least, had ceased his active antagonism. In fact, they moved with a comfortable, brotherly ease nowâa mix of teasing and begrudging respect that made the evenings in Awaâatlu feel peaceful.
"Found another one!" you chirped, spotting a flash of cream-colored calcium beneath a sharp ledge of brain coral.
You bent over, your focus narrowing on the prize. It was distinct against the darker sand, a spiral of pure white that would grind down into a perfect, snowy paste for dye. As you leaned down, the water rippling around your waist, your thick curls tumbled forward. Gravity pulled the heavy, damp ringlets over your shoulders, obscuring your vision and sticking to your cheeks.
With a practiced, absent-minded flick of your wrist, you tossed the damp mass back over your shoulder. The beads braided into your hairâtiny pieces of shell and woodâclacked softly against one another, a musical accompaniment to your labor.
You didn't notice Aonung standing just a few feet away, his movements going perfectly still.
He had been pacing the perimeter of the sandbar, ostensibly keeping watch for akula or merely patrolling his territory, but in truth, he had been circling you. Now, he froze. He was watching the way the seawater droplets clung to your skin, shimmering like liquid crystals against your patterned teal skin. He watched the concentrated line of your brow, the tip of your tongue just barely poking out between your teeth in focus, and the way your eyesâwide and bright with genuine wonderâlit up as you pulled the small, fluted shell from the sand.
To the rest of the clan, you were a diligent worker, a kind soul. To him, in this quiet moment between day and night, you looked perfectly in your elementâa pretty girl collecting pretty things, entirely unaware of how the starlight caught the curve of your collarbone.
Your head turned toward the figure looming a little ways away. Your eyes unexpectedly landed on Aonung, and a confused expression took over your features. He usually spent this time of day sharpening his spear or boasting with his friends by the fire. You wondered what he was doing here, standing so silently in the shallows, but deciding not to press, you simply waved at him.
Your inviting demeanor was one of his favorite things about you, though he would sooner die than admit it out loud. You never let anyone in the clan feel left out or less than. You were loyal to your people, a healer of spirits if not of bodies, always trying your hardest to make sure everyone was doing well.
"Look at the ridges on this, Aonung," you said, breaking the silence as you lifted the shell up toward him.
You took a step closer, water swirling around your thighs. Your eyes were wide, sparkling with that infectious excitement you only got when you found a new treasure for your art. "The symmetry is perfect. Eywa really was showing off when she made this one."
Aonung stared at the shell, forcing his eyes to focus on the calcium spiral rather than the water dripping from your curls, and gliding over your ceremonial tattoo. Then, against his will, his gaze drifted up to your face. He felt that familiar tight pull in his chestâa mixture of suffocating pride and a desperate, surging need to be the reason that look stayed on your face. He wanted to be the source of that wonder, not a dead piece of calcium.
"It is... adequate," he managed to say, his voice a bit deeper than usual, rough like gravel rolling in the surf.
He felt foolish the moment the words left his lips. Adequate? It was a beautiful find. But his defenses were high, a wall built of teenage bravado and the terrifying vulnerability of a first love. He didn't wait for you to respond. He turned abruptly and effortlessly dove, his powerful tail kicking up a spray of glowing foam that misted the air between you.
You simply hummed with a small tilt of your head, unbothered by his stoicism. You dropped the shell into your basket, the clack of it joining the others, and watched his figure disappear into the darkening water.
Unbeknownst to you, underneath the surface, Aonung was on a mission.
The water was cooler here, silent save for the rush of the current. His bioluminescent spots glowed brightly in the dim depths, marking his path like a constellation. He swam past the easy findsâthe common cowries and the drift-wood that Loâak was content finding in the shallows for his little sister. That was child's play. That was easy.
Aonung wanted the deeper parts of the reef. He wanted the places where the current was often unpredictable, where the pressure built against his ears, but where the rewards were unparalleled. He kicked harder, propelling himself toward a jagged drop-off where the coral grew thick and ancient. He scanned the crevices, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, hunting. He needed something that spoke of effort. Something that said, I went where others could not, just for you.
When he surfaced minutes later, he didn't just walk over and drop his finds into your basket. He waited. He treaded water, watching you scan the shoreline, waiting until you were standing still with that contemplative look on your face. He watched the way you bit your lower lip as you decided where to step next, your tail swaying in the water behind you for balance.
Only then did he move. He walked right into your space, dripping wet, the rising heat of his body radiating through the cool evening air. He stopped mere inches from you, close enough that you had to crane your neck slightly to look him in the eye.
"The shallows only give you what the ocean is tired of holding," he said softly, his voice low and intimate.
He reached out, his large hand hovering over your basket. He placed a cluster of small shells onto the pile of your woven treasures. They were heavy, distinctâa deep, blood-red color, their surfaces smooth as glass but thick and sturdy. They looked like they could withstand a storm, or a thousand years of tides.
You gasped, your fingers immediately abandoning your own basket rim to ghost over them.
"Aonung... these are beautiful," you whispered, the breath leaving your lungs. You looked up at him through your lashes, eyes wide. "The color... Iâve never seen this shade before. I can use the pigment from the broken ones to dye my thread the color of the eclipse sun. How did you find so many?"
You smiled, your ears swiveling back in delight as you felt your heart thump at the gesture. The realization hit you suddenlyâhe was so close. His broad frame towered over you, blocking out the view of the distant village fires, encompassing your entire world in that moment. You could practically trace every line of his tattoo that streamed from where his brow met his nose, to the right side of his face.
Aonung felt a swell of triumph so potent it nearly made him dizzy. He noticed the way you looked at the shellsâwith reverence and joyâand he silently vowed to empty the entire ocean floor, to fight an akula with his bare hands, if it meant youâd keep looking at him with those wide, appreciative eyes.
"I know where the hidden pockets are," he said, clearing his throat and trying to sound nonchalant.
He crossed his arms over his chest, though his own heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. A smirk grew on his lips, that familiar teasing glint appearing in his eyes as he narrowed them. He did a dramatic look away toward the other couple, shrugging his shoulders. "Loâak and Tsireya are happy with the scraps. I thought you might want something... more."
You gasped, your ears swiveling back, and you slapped his bicep playfully. The muscle under your hand was hard as rock, and wet skin slick against your palm. A small giggle of shock fell past your lips.
"Do not be mean, Aonung," you chided, though there was no heat in it. "But... thank you. Thank you for being so helpful today."
You gave him a bright, blinding smile, one that crinkled the corners of your eyes, before happily going back to your searching. You adjusted the basket, treating his contribution like gold, and bent down again to inspect the sand closely.
Predictably, your curls fell forward again.
Aonung stood rooted to the spot. Once more, you huffed softly and flipped them back with that graceful, unconscious toss of your head. Aonung watched the movement, his hands twitching at his sides. His fingers curled into fists. He wanted so badly to reach out. He wanted to be the one to tuck those wayward curls behind your ear. He wanted to be the one to carry the basket that was clearly getting too heavy to rest on your hip. He wanted to do everything for you, and the intensity of the desire was terrifying.
"Hey! Y/N! Aonung! Check this out!"
The shout broke the spell. Loâak was waving his arms frantically from a tidal pool a twenty meters away. He was holding up a bright orange sea star, visibly dryâ either a shed or it simply died before it could make it back to the water. "Itâs huge!"
Aonung looked at Loâak, his jaw tightening. Then he looked back at you.
He saw you laugh at Loâakâs find, your attention shifting entirely to the forest boy. "Thatâs amazing, Loâak! It will make a great center for a chest piece!" you called, your voice light and affectionate.
A sudden, sharp spark of jealousyânot of Loâak as a rival, but of the attention you were giving the sea starâflared in Aonungâs chest. It burned hot and fast. A starfish? Anyone could find a starfish. A starfish was nothing.
He didn't say a word. He didn't acknowledge Lo'ak's shout. He just turned and dove again, slashing into the water with more force than necessary. He went deeper this time, past the red shells, past the coral ridge. He was determined to find something so magnificent, so rare, that you wouldn't be able to look at Lo'ak, or the stars, or anything else for the rest of the night.
You laughed softly at his sudden departure, shaking your head. "He is so competitive," you murmured to yourself, amused by his antics. To you, it was just boys being boys, trying to outdo one another in speed and skill.
As the time passed, the moon rose higher, casting a silver sheen over the water. Your basket grew heavier, forcing you to switch hips frequently. You shifted the weight of Aonung's growing pile of treasuresâhe had returned three more times, each time with something more impressive: a piece of obsidian glass, a pearl still inside the oyster, and a branch of coral that looked like frozen lightning.
Finally, Tsireya waded over to you, Lo'ak trailing behind her like a happy puppy.
"Your brother is in such a good mood today, isn't he?" you said, wiping the sand from your hands as you turned to Tsireya. You gestured to the waterline where Aonung was currently surfacing, holding something that glowed faintly purple in his hands. "It's so nice of him to help me collect materials. Usually, he says weaving is boring work."
Tsireya froze. She looked at the rare, aesthetic hoard in your basketâmaterials that would have taken days to find in the shallows. She looked at the blood-red shells that required a dangerous dive into the trench.
Then, she looked out at the water. She saw her brother, the future Olo'eyktan, usually so proud and aloof, practically vibrating with the hope that you would like his latest offering. He was looking at you with an expression so open, so full of longing, that it was almost painful to witness.
Finally, she looked back at your sweet, oblivious face. You were smiling, genuinely believing Aonung was just being a dutiful clan member.
Tsireya let out a long, slow sigh, shaking her head.
"Yes, Ma tsmuke," Tsireya murmured, a pitying smile on her lips as she patted your arm. "Extremely... 'nice.'"
The following week dissolved into a blur of turquoise water and sun-bleached moments, defined less by your daily chores and more by the sudden, omnipresent gravity of the chiefâs son. It was as if he had developed a sixth sense for your whereabouts, appearing whenever you were just starting to feel relaxed.
He appeared at random, unpredictable hours, disrupting the rhythm of your day with the chaotic energy of a storm tide. If you were mending nets by the docks, his shadow would suddenly fall over your work, his hands "accidentally" brushing yours as he offered to help with a knot you perfectly understood how to tie. If you were having a quiet meal, he would drift by, dropping a fresh fruit onto your woven mat without a word, only a smirk that lingered long after he had walked away.
But it was the afternoons beneath the water that became his favorite hunting ground.
You were deep underwater, the sunlight filtering down in shimmering "god-rays" that danced across the sandy floor, riding ilus with the Sully children and Tsireya. Down here, the world was silent save for the muffled clicks of the sea life and the rhythmic beat of your own heart.
You were all gliding through a forest of giant sea fans, the Sullys struggling a bit with their breathing rhythms while Tsireya moved with the effortless grace of a creature born of the current. You were focused on your own mount, adjusting your grip on the neural bond, when a large, dark shadow swept over you.
Aonung appeared right beside you, his ilu banking sharply to match your speed. In the turquoise gloom, his bioluminescent dots glowed like a map of the stars. He caught your eye and flashed a wide, shit-eating grin that sent a jolt through your chest. He didn't say a wordâhe didn't have to. He simply raised a hand, signing one sharp, challenging word:
âRace?â
You didn't even wait to signal the others. You leaned flat against the iluâs neck, and the two of you went full throttle.
The pressure of the water increased as you accelerated, the reef becoming a blur of neon streaks. You pushed through the resistance, your tail acting as a secondary rudder, feeling the raw power of the ocean rushing past your skin. You and Aonung were neck-and-neck, weaving through coral arches and tight rock formations, completely dusting your friends. By the time you looped around the massive sea-wall and tore back toward the shore, the rest of the group was nothing but distant, tiny specks in the blue.
As the water turned from deep indigo to the pale, sun-drenched teal of the shallows, you both breached the surface simultaneously.
You gasped for air, the transition from the silent depths to the crashing sound of the waves making your head spin for a moment. Aonung popped up just inches away. He was desperately trying to play it cool, smoothing his hair back with both hands, but he couldn't hide the heavy, ragged heave of his chest. The race had pushed him just as hard as it had pushed you.
In the heat of the moment, your eyes betrayed you.
Instead of looking at the horizon or checking on the others, your gaze drifted. It started at his soaked hair, which was plastered to his forehead, then traced the dark, intricate tattoos that marked his face as a future leader. Your eyes lingered on his broadening shoulders and the powerful swell of his chest, following the lines of his body down to his core. His abs were defined and tense from the exertion, partially obscured by a beautifully woven chest piece that slung around his shouldersâa piece you knew heâd spent time choosing.
Aonung went still. He caught you staring, the exhaustion in his eyes instantly replaced by a predatory, playful spark. His ears flickered once, twice, and then that arrogant, knowing grin returned.
âMy eyes are up here, ma txeâlan,â he teased.
His voice was a low, honeyed rumble that cut through the sound of the surf. You felt the blood rush to your face instantly, your ears flattening in pure mortification as your eyes shot back up to meet his. He watched your panic with absolute delight, his smile growing wider as he realized exactly how much of an effect he was having on you.
You quickly regained your composure, holding your head high as you huffed at him, trying to summon every ounce of dignity you had left while your face still burned a vivid shade of violet.
âI was simply observing the weaving!â you shot back, splashing a handful of water toward him to distract from your blush. âI helped make that piece, yâknow? I was checking to see if youâd managed to fray the edges already with your... recklessness.â
Aonung didnât flinch at the water; he leaned into it, his grin only sharpening. He looked down at the woven leather and shell-work crossing his chest, then back at you, his eyes hooded and dark with mischief.
"Ah, so it was a professional inspection then?" he asked, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. He began to paddle his ilu closer, the creatureâs wet skin squeaking against yours as he closed the gap. "Tell me, weaver, did the 'work' meet your standards? Or do you need to get closer to check the... structural integrity?"
He was so close now that you could feel the heat radiating off his skin, a stark contrast to the cool ocean mist clinging to your shoulders. The playful arrogance in his posture was infuriating, mostly because it was working.
"The work is fine," you managed to say, though your voice lacked its usual bite. "The wearer, however, is being a nuisance."
"A nuisance?" Aonung laughed, the sound deep and genuine. He reached up, his large hand lingering near the strap of the chest piece, right over the fastening thrum of his heart. "And here I thought I was being helpful, giving you a chance to admire your handiwork in action. Most artists would be grateful for such a... fine canvas."
He flexed his shoulder slightly, making the shells on the strap clack togetherâthe very shells he had dived into the deep reef to find for you just a week prior. It was a silent reminder of the effort he was putting in, a hidden thread of vulnerability beneath his teasingâ and unbeknownst to you, heâd chosen that piece because he recognized your work.
Before you could think of a witty retort, the sound of chattering ilus and splashing water announced the arrival of the others.
"Finally!" Loâakâs voice boomed as he surfaced a few yards away, his expression a mix of annoyance and awe. "What was that? You guys took off like you had an akula on your tails!"
Tsireya pulled up beside him, her eyes darting between your flushed face and Aonungâs smug expression. She didn't miss the way her brother was lingering in your personal space, or the way your tail was twitching nervously beneath the surface. A knowing, slightly weary smile touched her lips.
"Aonung, stop pestering her," Tsireya chided gently, though there was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "She came out here to enjoy the water, not to be run ragged by your ego."
"I was merely testing her speed, sister," Aonung said, finally pulling his mount back a few inches, though he kept his gaze locked on yours. "And it seems she is almost as fast as I am. Almost."
He winked at youâa quick, daring movement that felt like a secret shared in front of everyoneâbefore turning his ilu to join the group.
The afternoon that followed was shared between the both of you.Â
The sun, a bloated orb of fire, dipped toward the horizon, bleeding amber and gold into the turquoise waters of the reef. In the weavers' pavilion, the air was thick with the scent of dried sea grass, crushed minerals, and the faint, sweet aroma of the incense the elders burned to honor the Great Mother.
You sat nestled in your usual spot, your legs tucked beneath you. This was your sanctuary. While the others were out hunting or practicing with their spears, you found a different kind of power in the loom. There was a rhythm to itâa heartbeat in the clack-clack of the wood and the sliding of the shuttle.
You were surrounded by the elders of the clan, women whose hands were stained with dye and whose skin was etched with the deep, storied lines of many seasons. You loved their company; they didn't care about the petty dramas of the teenagers or the posturing of the hunters. They spoke of the ancestors, of the flow of Eywa, and today, they were particularly interested in your recent progress.
"Your thread is becoming stronger, little one," Tiâmiria, the eldest among them, remarked as she peered over her spectacles made of polished translucent shell. "And your eye for color is improving."
You beamed, dipping a bundle of fibers into a bowl of fixative. "Thank you, Tiâmiria. Iâve been trying a new technique for the binding." you watched a her eyes wandered to your material basket.
"You have been blessed by the tides, little one," Saeyla remarked, her voice like crinkling parchment. She gestured with a gnarled, dye-stained finger toward the cluster of deep, blood-red shells resting atop your fibers. "Those are not found by mere luck. They cling to the undersides of the jagged rocks where the currents are strong enough to rip a weak swimmer from the reef."
You flushed, reaching down to pick one up. It felt heavy and cool, its surface polished by the violence of the ocean. "I didn't find them," you said, your voice softening. "Aonung went to get them for me. He said the shallows were only for things the ocean was tired of holding."
A hush fell over the circle. It wasn't a cold silence, but one pregnant with meaning. Tiâmiria exchanged a look with the woman beside herâa look that held the weight of a thousand seasons. They knew the pride of the Olo'eyktanâs son; they knew he didn't risk his life for "weaving supplies" unless his heart was already caught in the thread.
"Is that so?" She whispered, a secretive, knowing smile stretching her lips. "How very... helpful of him."
Before you could defend his honor or insist it was just a display of his typical arrogance, a shadow lengthened across the pavilion floor. The heavy, rhythmic footfalls were unmistakable.
Aonung strode in, looking entirely too large and too vibrantly alive for the quiet space. He wasn't carrying a spear or a net. Instead, he held a small, sturdy basket of his own. Without a word of greeting to the eldersâthough he gave them a respectful dip of his headâhe dropped onto the mat directly beside you.
"Aonung!" you hissed, your eyes wide as you leaned toward him. "What are you doing here? This is a quiet space."
He didn't look at you. Instead, he began pulling out strips of dark, cured leather and a handful of small, iridescent shells that shimmered like oil on water. "My father says a leader must know the craft of his people," he grumbled, though his ears were twitching in a way that suggested he was lying through his teeth. "I have... things to make. I am joining you."
You stared at his basket. It wasn't filled with broken gear to mend. It was filled with beautiful, hand-picked treasuresâsmall, delicate white shells, obsidian beads, and a strange, glowing blue seaglass.
"Since when do you weave, Aonung?" you whispered, your voice hushed so the elders wouldn't hear your teasing.
"Since I decided I wanted to," he snapped back, though there was no heat in it. He fumbled with the leather strips, his large, calloused fingers looking comically oversized as he tried to start a basic four-strand braid.
You watched him for a moment, your heart doing a strange little skip. He was being so deliberate, his brow furrowed in that same intense concentration you had seen when he was hunting. You assumed he was making a new grip for his knife or perhaps a decorative band for his ilu. You had no idea that every shell in his basket had been chosen because it reminded him of the way the light caught your eyes, or that the length of the kelp leather he was braiding was exactly the circumference of your neck.
The hour stretched on. The elders eventually stopped staring and went back to their own work, their low hum of gossip returning like the evening tide.
Aonung was struggling. A low, frustrated growl vibrated in his chest as the leather strips slipped from his grip for the third time.
"You're pulling much too hard," you murmured, reaching over without thinking.
Your fingers brushed his, and he went perfectly still. The heat of his skin was startling against yours. You gently took the leather from his hands, showing him how to keep the tension even. "If you pull too hard on the left, the whole braid will twist. You have to be patient, Aonung. You have to follow to the material."
You guided his hands with yours, your smaller fingers resting over his knuckles. For a moment, the world narrowed down to the sensation of his skin, the smell of salt and sun that followed him everywhere, and the rhythmic sound of his breathing.
He didn't look at the braid. He was looking at you. His gaze was heavy, focused on the way your hair fell over your shoulder, on the small patch of bioluminescence near your collarbone where this necklace would soon rest, on the way your lips moved as you explained the craft.
"Like this?" he asked, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that made your stomach flip.
"Yes," you whispered, finally meeting his eyes. "Exactly like that."
You spent the rest of the evening in a state of quiet bliss. You discovered that Aonung was actually quite funny when he wasn't trying to be the toughest warrior in the village. He told you about the time he tried to ride a skimwing before he was ready and ended up face-first in a patch of stinging coral. He told you about the hidden caves behind the northern cliffs where the water turned a color so bright it looked like the sky.
And all the while, he worked. He meticulously wove the shells into the leather, his movements becoming more fluid under your guidance. He was creating a necklaceâa piece of jewelry so intricate and beautiful it would have taken an expert weeksâbut he was doing it in a single night, fueled by a desperate, silent need to give you something of his own making.
By the time the moon was high and the fireflies of the reef began their nightly dance, you were both finished. The pavilion was empty, the elders having slipped away long ago with knowing smiles.
"I should get back," you said, feeling a sudden, shy heaviness in your limbs. "My family will be wondering where I am."
"I will walk you," he said. It wasn't a suggestion.
He picked up your heavy basket, slinging it over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing, while he tucked his own finished work into a hidden pouch at his waist.
The walk to your marui was slow. The village was quiet, the only sound the soft slap-slapof the water against the pilings and the distant call of a night-bird. Aonung walked close to youâso close your shoulders occasionally brushed.
When you reached the entrance to your home, he handed you your basket. The moonlight caught the sharp angles of his face, softening the arrogance into something much more vulnerable.
"I enjoyed the weaving," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Even if the elders are nosy."
You let out a soft giggle, your tail swaying behind you. "They just like to see you doing something that doesn't involve throwing a spear, Aonung."
You looked up at him, your heart hammering against your ribs. You wanted to say more. You wanted to ask him why he had really come, why he had looked at you like that over the leather strips, but the words felt too big for your throat.
"Thank you for walking me," you said instead, giving him a shy, radiant smile. "And for the help today."
"Goodnight, Y/N," he whispered.
You turned to go inside, your mind racing, but just as you reached the curtain, you looked back. He was still standing there, a dark silhouette against the silver water, watching you with an intensity that made your breath hitch. You waved a small, hesitant hand, and he nodded once before turning to melt into the shadows of the village.
As you stepped inside your marui and set your basket down, you felt a strange sense of completion. You didn't know yet that tomorrow, he would find you by the shore and press a cold, woven necklace into your handâa gift of blue teardrop pearls, starlight and the talon of a reef bird to match his own, woven by the hands of a warrior who had finally found something worth holding onto more than his pride.
The golden hour in Awaâatlu was more than just a time of day; it was a transformation of the world. The Great Mother seemed to hold her breath as the sun, a bloated and magnificent orb of molten fire, dipped toward the horizon. It bled a palette of impossible colorsâburning amber, bruised plum, and a liquid gold that turned the surface of the ocean into a shimmering mirror of fire.
The air was heavy and warm, carrying the sweet, intoxicating scent of the night-blooming flora from the shoreline and the sharp, clean tang of salt spray. It was the kind of evening that felt permanent, as if the universe had paused just to witness the transition from the frantic energy of the day to the bioluminescent peace of the night.
You were wading in the waist-deep water near the village docks, the cool, rhythmic lap of the tide a soothing balm against your skin. Today, you had finally unraveled your hair from its tight, intricate ceremonial braids. Without the weight of the beads and the structure of the weave, your hair felt immenseâa thick, wild sea of curls that cascaded over your shoulders and floated atop the water like dark, silken kelp. You felt free, untethered, and entirely at peace.
Beside you, Tsireya was a picture of effortless grace. She was humming a soft, melodic tuneâa song the Metkayina used to call the spirit of the waterâas she moved through the shallows. In her hands, she held a woven basket of small, silvery fish. With practiced ease, she tossed them one by one to a group of young ilus that had gathered around you both.
The creatures were in a playful mood, their chattering clicks and whistles vibrating through the water. One particularly bold calf nudged its snout against your hip, nearly knocking you off balance. You laughed, the sound bright and clear in the evening air, as you reached down to stroke its smooth, rubbery skin.
"They are hungry tonight," you remarked, your fingers tracing the glowing patterns on the ilu's flank. "And very demanding."
Tsireya smiled, her eyes crinkling with warmth. "They know who has the best spirit, ma tsmuke. They can feel that you are at rest today."
But as the words left her lips, her gaze drifted past you, toward the pale curve of the shoreline. Her expression shiftedâa mischievous, knowing glint entering her eyes that made your heart do a sudden, unprompted hop. "It seems we are not the only ones drawn to the water tonight," she murmured, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone.
You followed her gaze, squinting against the blinding gold of the setting sun. There, standing at the edge of the tide where the sand met the surf, was Aonung.
He looked different than he had in the weavers' pavilion or during the frantic races on the reef. Gone was the loud-mouthed warrior, replaced by someone who looked uncharacteristically hesitant. He was standing perfectly still, his hands tucked behind his back, his tail giving a sharp, rhythmic flick that betrayed his internal nerves. He was watching youânot with his usual smirk, but with an intensity that felt heavy, even from a distance.
He seemed to be contemplating his next move, caught in a moment of rare indecision. From where you stood, you couldn't see the sweat on his palms or the way his heart was hammering against his ribs, but you could see the way he looked at you. To Aonung, you were the center of the world. The golden light caught the curve of your neck, the wild tumble of your hair, and the way your woven top rested perfectly against your skin. You were a vision of everything he had been working toward for weeks.
Tsireya, never one to let her brother suffer in silence, cupped her hands around her mouth. "Aonung! Are you waiting for the tide to go out, or are you going to join us?"
The shout broke his trance. You saw him jump slightly, his ears pinning back in a flash of visible panic. He looked around as if hoping a rogue akula might appear to give him an excuse to leave, but when he realized he was trapped, he squared his shoulders. With a deep breath that expanded his broad chest, he began to wade out into the water.
His movements were slow, deliberate. As he drew closer, the water rippling around his strong legs, the playful chattering of the ilus seemed to fade into the background. There was a gravity to his approach that made the air feel thick.
"Tsireya," he said stiffly as he reached the two of you, offering his sister a curt nod. Then, his eyes locked onto yours, and the rest of the world simply ceased to exist for him. "Y/N."
Tsireya didn't miss the way his gaze lingered on your hair, or the way your own tail was twitching beneath the surface. She let out a soft, knowing giggle. "I believe the ilus by the maruiâs are feeling neglected," she announced, already turning to swim away. "Do not be a bore, Aonung. Try to use your words."
She disappeared into the golden glare, leaving the two of you in a pocket of profound, charged silence. The water swirled between you, the rising heat of his body radiating through the cooling evening air.
"You look..." Aonung started, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, deepening it to regain his composure. "Your hair. It is different."
"I took the braids out," you said, feeling a sudden, shy heat rise in your cheeks. You reached up to brush a damp curl from your face. "Do you like it?"
"I... yes. very much," he breathed, his eyes traveling over every feature of your face.
The moment felt fragile, like a piece of spun glass. Aonung took a half-step closer, his large frame towering over you, blocking out the sun and surrounding you in his shadow. He reached into the small pouch at his waist, his movements slow and reverent.
"I have been thinking," he began, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in your chest. "I have been courting you for a while now. It has been... a process. But I think I am finally ready to present you with this."
He held out his hand. Lying across his broad, calloused palm was the necklace he had labored over in the pavilion.
In the dying light of the sun, it was breathtaking. The green woven kelp-leather was vibrant and rich, a testament to the patience you had taught him. At the center hung the reef bird talon, polished until it gleamed like a piece of dark glass, a perfect mirror to the one he wore himself. But it was the additions that made your breath catchâtrailing along the weave were small, blue teardrop pearls. They were the exact shade of the pearls you wore in your hair, shimmering with an iridescent light that spoke of the deep ocean.
"Aonung," you whispered, your fingers ghosting over the talon. "Itâs beautiful. Itâs perfect."
"I wanted it to be right," he said, his ears perking up at your praise. "I wanted it to match you. To show that I see you."
You were staring at the intricate knots, moved beyond words, but then his earlier phrasing finally clicked in your mind. You looked up at him, your brow furrowing in genuine, sweet confusion. "Wait... what did you just say?"
Aonung blinked, his confident posture wavering. "I said I wanted it to match you?"
"No, before that," you said, your head tilting to the side. "The part about... courting?"
Aonungâs ears did a slow, dramatic droop. His mouth fell open, and for a moment, he looked entirely lost. "Yes. Courting. The gifts? The rare shells from the trench? The racing every afternoon? The fact that I have sat through three weaver's circles just to be near you?"
You blinked back at him, your mind racing through the memories of the past weeks. To you, it had been a series of fun, increasingly close moments with a friend who was finally softening. "I thought you were just... being helpful? I thought we were becoming very, very good friends, Aonung."
Aonung looked like he wanted to throw himself into the surf. He groaned, a long, dramatic sound of exasperation, and threw his hands up in the air. "Very good friends? Y/N, that was courting. My presence at your side every waking hour for the past fourteen sun-cycles just to be very good friends?"
He paced a small, frustrated circle in the waist-deep water, his tail splashing the surface. "Did you think I was doing that for Lo'ak? You truly didn't know? After everything?"
The heat in your face was now a full, violet flush. Looking back at the intensity in his eyes, the way he always stood a little too close, the way he had essentially become your shadowâit was so blindingly obvious that you felt like a fool.
"Well... now that I think about it," you murmured, a sheepish, radiant smile spreading across your lips. "I guess it was a bit more than 'friendly' behavior."
Aonung stopped his pacing and looked at you, his frustration melting into a look of pure, helpless affection. ""I am courting a girl who is as blind as a cave-fish," he muttered to himself, though the corner of his mouth was twitching.
"I'm sorry!" you giggled, stepping into his space until your chests were nearly touching. "But I accept. The gift... and the suitor."
Aonungâs breath hitched. "I see you, Y/N"
"I see you, Aonung"
You took the necklace from his hand, the weight of it a physical promise. You moved closer, stepping up onto your tippy-toes in the swirling water to reach him. You wrapped your arms around his thick neck, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder. Aonung didn't hesitate this time; his large arms surged around you, pulling you flush against his warm, damp skin. He held you with a strength that made you feel entirely safe, his heart hammering a frantic, joyous rhythm against your own.
In the distance, Tsireya watched from the sully Marui with loâak, her heart full as she saw the two of you silhouetted against the last sliver of the sun. It was done.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. "Will you help me put it on?"
Aonungâs hands were trembling as he took the leather cord. You turned around, lifting the heavy, curly mass of your hair to expose the nape of your neck. You felt the cool touch of the pearls against your skin, and then the feather-light, reverent brush of his fingers as he secured the clasp.
When you turned back to face him, the necklace sat perfectly against your collarbone, the blue pearls glowing in the twilight. Aonung reached out, his thumb grazing your jawline, his gaze darkening with a sudden, heavy intensity.
"Y/N," he breathed, his hand sliding into the curls at the back of your head to pull you closer.
You didn't wait for him to ask. You leaned in, closing the distance, and then his lips were on yours.
The kiss was everything the last few weeks had beenâintense, sweet, and deep like the ocean. It tasted of salt and the warmth of the sun. Aonung groaned low in his throat, his other hand splaying across your back to hold you as if heâd never let go. You melted into him, your fingers tangling in his hair, the world around you dissolving into nothing but the feel of him and the pulse of the tide.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead stayed against yours. He was breathless, a triumphant, vulnerable smile on his face. "Now," he whispered. "Do you still think we are just 'very good friends'?"
You laughed, pulling him back down for another kiss. "No, maybe best friends."
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