⠀ ⠀ ⠀ (* ´ ﹃｀*) ෴ 𝓁uv ⊱ 𝓼ick boyྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ Ꮺ
SUMMARY : ˘³˘ fem! gatherer! reader ⊹ ࣪ ˖ high camp changes everything for the omaticaya gatherers. because banshees belong only to hunters, and warrior, gatherers like you are effectively stranded in the sky. to reach the sweet fruit of the lowlands, you must rely on a mandatory airborne ferry service. every harvest becomes a tactical operation, pairing a basket with a set of warrior wings. and for neteyam, it is the perfect excuse to finally claim his favorite gatherer’s time.
curse your fragile, yielding defenses for collapsing so unceremoniously under the strategic advancement of the eldest sully boy, leaving the raw vulnerabilities of your unconscious entirely exposed to a mind so chillingly analytical. with an alarming velocity of observation, to your demise, neteyam deciphers that the calculated withholding of his skin against yours inflicts a far more devastating trauma upon your somatic equilibrium than any bold grab he is capable of performing could ever replicate. marooned in the humid shadows of the understory, a gathering of hushed bodies frantically organizing the sun-baked harvest into shallow reed containers, the sticky exudate of the rinds pasting a sugary film across your fingertips that defies the frantic friction of your palms against your cloth-bound thighs. it was silly of you to think that any child of jake sully would shrivel under public scrutiny. he remains completely indifferent to the gaze of lookouts, descending directly into your immediate perimeter despite his mismatched status as a hunter intruding upon the activities of gatherers. he’ll suspend his framework directly above your downcast head until his face is much too close to yours, until his features loom with an invasive clarity. you ingest the natural chemistry of his proximity, a thick saturation of damp topsoil and warm skin filling your nasal passages, hyper-aware that the slightest involuntary jerk of your frame would slide your cheek flush against the tip of his nose. you don’t bother to look up. you just can’t bring yourself to even begin to try. you know his amber eyes are already roving along the soft outer vermillion of your plush mouth, where your shallow respirations betray your panic.
“where did you find these? along the river banks past the ridge or closer to the sapling grove?”
he tilts his skull to cast a brief, dismissive glance at the baskets before redirecting his full attention to the visible tremor in your hands, you want to melt. he could not care less about the answer, the botanical data is entirely irrelevant to his agenda. his eyes, wandering like they do, monitor the shifting morphology of your lips, anticipating the precise manner of your verbal capitulation rather than the actual vocabulary of an answer.
you know you can’t open your mouth to say anything that is not an answer to his question, your mouth stays shut because anything you say will come out too soft to survive the moment. he‘ll rationalize this suffocating proximity by leaning closer still, murmuring that your quietude forces him to catch your breath as your skull drops toward the dirt, your lashes throwing futile shade across your burning skin you hope might hide you. he waits until he can notice your tail lashing once to betray you. he smiles and straightens, lifting his weight off his forearm and giving you space, though the warmth of him lingers.
“it is all right,” he says lightly, as if nothing had happened though everything had. he does not need your answer. that odd encounter was nothing else but a deliberate prod to see if the shy, pretty gatherer truly had a crush on him as lo’ak said she did.
corporeal displacement to the sterile, unyielding baroque network of caves and narrow mountain passes of high camp has fissured the gentle and customarily cyclical throb of your existence, yielding the familiar act which was once as instinctually as breath through the lungs of foraging a distant luxury. jake sully’s new wartime protocols have essentially turned a peaceful morning of fruit-picking into a tactical operation, making a trip for sweets almost as lethal as stalking a weary hexaped through the brush. the quickening soil of the valley no longer kisses the margins of your homes, the vibrant floor of pandora no longer waits outside the woven thresholds of your tents; the jagged precipices separate a treacherous green sea from your sanctuary by sheer drops and the patrolling iron monsters of the sky people. a gatherer’s sovereign agency is mournfully dismantled by this lofty estrangement, for the primitive grace and simple liberty of foot-bound wanderings through the understory has vanished under the tyranny of siege and wartime necessity. surely, the camp fires still crackle with the weighted savory scent of roasted meats brought in by the tracking parties, but savory protein does nothing to quench a deeper longing. the people are practically starving for the bright, dripping burst of fresh fruit, wholly desperate for a taste of the lowlands to cut through the monotony of charred flesh and dry rations. every forage for sweet pulp or remedial bark now demands an exhausting, symbiotic compromise, chaining your domestic obligations to the whims of the skies. to glean from the forest floor, to touch the earth at all, you must wait upon the stone ledges, entirely dependent on the goodwill of the hunters and the powerful sweep of their ikrans to descend into the perilous canopy, transforming what was once a quiet, independent art into a stark proof of your captivity.
the incessant murmuring of unappeased bellies — no longer content with the flesh of things that once drew breath — eventually infected ranks, landing squarely on the heavily burdened shoulders of a highly-strung jake sully. the people wanted the orchard more than the slaughter. as if the man didn’t already have a running tally of existential crises keeping him awake at night. between keeping his family alive, his wife happy, his people from being vaporized by gunships, and compulsively counting his dwindling crates of bullets, his midnight schedule was full. he now had to add an aggressive public craving for sugary botanicals to his mental itinerary. it certainly didn’t help that his own household was a constant source of tactical anxiety, with his younger children always running off to who knows where; tuk was too small and curious for her own good, kiri was constantly spaced out in the brush communion-deep with eywa, and lo’ak was a walking magnet for multi-ton trouble. the boy breathed and consumed bad decisions. realizing that morale was decaying just as fast as their patience with dry rations, jake reluctantly integrated the orchard runs into his grand military calculus. his newly minted solution was characteristically pragmatic: fruit gathering was officially reclassified as an airborne escort mission. from that moment on, no gatherer was permitted to attempt taking a single step off the rocky precipices without a designated flight partner, systematically pairing every woven basket with a lethal set of ikran wings to guarantee a swift, tactical descent into the danger zone.
the quite ingenious newly mandated airborne ferry service quickly became the bane of existence for the clan’s younger hunters, who viewed the assignment as a thoroughly tedious demotion from glory. to a warrior accustomed to tracking angtsìk or running reconnaissance on sky people supply lines, spending a beautiful afternoon playing chauffeur to a basket-wielding foraging party was nothing short of an absolute snooze fest. most of the hot-blooded young riders loathed the quiet monotony of watching fruit tumble into shallow containers all day, while a select few found it a perfectly tolerable and low-stakes change of pace from the constant threat of gunships. for neteyam, however, the mundane chore was transformed into the absolute highlight of his week because it guaranteed him a legitimate, jake-approved excuse to monopolize your time. he was always the very first to volunteer his mountain banshee for the orchard runs, entirely content to bypass the thrill of the hunt just to feel the deliberate weight of your hands gripping his waist as you shared the narrow saddle of his ikran.
a tragic diagnosis for the love-sick warrior: his father’s strategic mind was brilliant for guerilla warfare and masterfully attuned to the violent physics of a jungle raid, but when it came to matchmaking and the desires of his eldest son, toruk makto was hilariously brick-brained. assignments were entirely randomized to ensure an unbiased rotation of guards, meaning you were rarely paired with neteyam on purpose. whenever the leather straps of the flight roster fell in a different direction, neteyam would nine times out of ten find himself stuck playing chauffeur to an agonizingly chatty elder or a younger clan girl who was entirely incapacitated by a crush on him. he remained the perfect, dutiful oloeyktan’s son in both scenarios, but his tail would twitch with a heavy disappointment that he couldn’t quite stifle. most elders absolutely adored him, especially old sawey, who smelled of pungent eyaye paste and remembered neteyam from the days he was small enough to trip over his own loincloth. she would loudly regale the entire landing ledge — including you — with mortifying childhood stories of how the eldest sully boy once cried after being pinched by a cuirass crab, entirely destroying his “fierce” warrior “mystique.” her voice would echo off the granite towards the heavens while her weathered hands mimicked the aggressive snapping of claws, shouting for everyone to hear how the mighty soilder neteyam had once shrieked and scrambled up his mother’s leg over a tiny, territorial arthropod. the surrounding gatherers would instantly dissolve into giggles, the bright sound of their amusement grating sharply against neteyam’s meticulously cultivated pride. his skin would flush a deeper, bruised shade of azure beneath his stripes, his ears pinning back in a display of agonized despair as he, to hide, leaned heavily into his ikran, his palms scraping over the rough, familiar weave of the straps for the fourth time. he would narrow his vision to a sharp squint, shaking his head as if to dislodge the unbearable weight of the collective gaze. and still, the moment his amber eyes inevitably drifted over to where you were crouching, catching the sight of you desperately pressing your hand over your mouth to stifle your own soaring laughter, his rigid shoulders would instantly drop. he’d let out a soft, defeated huff, a breathless chuckle slipping past his teeth as he realized his dignity was completely forfeit, his tail giving a helpless, affectionate twitch because he simply couldn’t stay miserable when your shoulders were shaking with joy right alongside his.
meanwhile, lo’ak was frequently slapped onto this tedious ferry duty as a punishment for his latest multi-ton disasters, which unexpectedly led to the absolute tragedy of neteyam’s previous week: lo’ak randomly drawing your name on the roster. neteyam distinctly remembered wanting the ground to open up and swallow him whole as he watched you climb onto his younger brother’s ikran instead of his own, his jaw tight as he mounted his banshee with a sour and brooding silence. lo’ak didn’t have a crush on you himself, though he wasn’t blind, and he’d admit to anyone who asked that you were easily one of the prettiest gatherers in the whole camp, but he knew exactly how desperately his older brother was pinning for you. in such times, lo’ak would possess a rare moment of sibling sympathy and for the afternoon decided to play the ultimate wingman, spending the entire flight subtly talking his brother up and keeping mental notes of your every sigh so he could ruthlessly tease a flustered neteyam with the juicy details around the hearth fire that night.
though, lo’ak being, wholeheartedly himself, would plunge into the open sky the moment his ikran broke away from the high camp ledges, banking hard into a steep, stomach-dropping dive just to hear you gasp, pulling up at the last second with a triumphant hoot. he’d glance back over his shoulder with a small grin, casting a lingering, hyper-conspicuous look back at how closely your torso had to align with his spine to fit within the narrow saddle, a maneuver that caused neteyam’s left ear to pin itself flat against his skull in a display of pure homicidal misery. neteyam sat atop his own mount just ten paces away, his fingers white where they gripped the steering queues, his spine aligned with an unnatural symmetry that showed his internal mortification to anyone trained in the grammar of sully family dynamics. to keep you from feeling too awkward and to prove he wasn’t completely boring, lo’ak would start performing subtle, show-off tricks in mid-air — doing a sudden, lazy barrel roll or dropping the ikran’s altitude by twenty feet in a sudden breath, making your stomach swoop and forcing a startled, delighted laugh right out of your throat. you’d clutch his shoulders, laughing at his sudden burst of confidence, and for a second, the terrifying reality of the war below would completely fade. but the fun would abruptly die the moment neteyam’s massive forest-green ikran pulled up directly at the edge of lo’ak peripheral vision. he wouldn’t shout a single word over the roar of the wind, but he would cut his amber eyes over to lo’ak, delivering a piercing glare that promised a wrestling match in the dirt the second they got home. lo’ak had killed the tricks instantaneously, tensing up under his older brother’s gaze, and mouthing a stuttered, “alright,” as he immediately straightened the ride out into a completely standard, boring flight path.
for the rest of the trip he would manipulate the flight with subtle adjustments, tilting the wing flap just enough to make his ikran slide sideways through a narrow gap in the branches. it was a remarkably difficult maneuver, executed with a casual and understated skill that he just so happened to let slip into the journey, proving he possessed the instinct of a true warrior even if he lacked his brother’s pristine reputation. during these quiet lulls between the rushing winds, he would casually point out the faint, hidden pathways of the forest below, noting the exact ridges where the sweet utral utu mauti grew thickest and tracking the subtle signs of the terrain with an impressive accuracy that he attributed entirely to neteyam’s own teachings. he was just so smart, wasn’t he? then began his long and hopefully not-so-obvious endeavor of endearing neteyam to you. lo’ak noticed everything from his position at the front of the saddle, his sharp ears catching the exact moment your breath hitched when the beast dipped too quickly, and the way your fingers instinctively dug into his shoulders for stability. he caught the relieved sigh that escaped your lips whenever the flight smoothed out, and he subtly adjusted his posture to give you a steadier grip without making you feel self-conscious. every time he brought up neteyam’s name, interweaving his brother’s habits into his soft-spoken observations about the landscape, he would catch the telling shift in your weight against his back, a sudden tensing of your frame that betrayed your hidden affection. he observed the way you tried to look anywhere but at the massive forest-green ikran flying parallel to you both, even though your eyes would inevitably drift back to the eldest sully boy whenever the distance closed. lo’ak processed these small reactions with a knowing satisfaction so he could use every single detail to ruthlessly dismantle his brother’s stoic composure later that evening.
later came, and the communal fire pit radiated a warmth that did nothing to soothe neteyam’s internal agitation. he sat within the family circle, embodying the perfect archetype of filial piety as he methodically scraped the shaft of a hunting spear, his expression a mask of stoic indifference that completely repressed the manic curiosity clawing at the seams. across the embers, lo’ak was tearing into a piece of roasted meat with a maddening slow-motion precision, entirely aware of the psychological hostage situation he was orchestrating.
the precise instant jake pivoted to address neytiri, and kiri withdrew entirely into her own internal communion, neteyam altered his coordinates on the woven mat. he migrated closer to his sibling under the acoustic cover of the crackling timber, his voice dropping into a low frequency that barely disturbed the air.
“what did she say,” neteyam demanded, his mandibular muscles locking to suppress any overt display of emotion as his focus remained anchored on the timber. “when you flew past the ridge. did she mention the harvest?”
lo’ak released a muted breath of exasperation, shifting his weight with a theatrical display of irritation. “bro, leave me alone. i’m trying to eat.”
“lo’ak,” neteyam pressed, a rare, vulnerable crack splintering his meticulously cultivated armor, his tail giving a singular anxious twitch against the dirt. “did she… did she look back?”
lo’ak glanced at his older brother, fully intending to inflict another twenty-four hours of agonizing sensory deprivation. but as he caught the desperate, uncharacteristic softness in neteyam’s amber eyes and all the anxious hope that the older boy usually hid behind a wall of military duty, the younger brother’s defenses unexpectedly collapsed. he let out a defeated sigh, his annoyance melting into a reluctant fondness.
leaning laterally until his shoulder collided with neteyam’s, lo’ak murmured into the narrow space between them, “she spent the whole flight trying not to stare at your ikran. and every time i mentioned your name, her heart practically jumped through her chest. she likes you.”
neteyam’s posture surrendered its rigid alignment. a breathless chuckle escaped his teeth, his tail delivering a singular affectionate impact against the terrain as a profound emotional relief saturated his consciousness. across the clearing, the twilight softened the stark outlines of the high camp. he would fall asleep planning the exact secluded coordinates of the understory where he could safely present you with a flawless piece of fruit he had harvested himself, ensuring that his own fingers were the only ones to leave a sweet residue against yours.
(,,Ծ‸Ծ,, ) says : i just made sum BUUULLLLLSHIIIIIIIIIIII!!!! this has been in my drafts since december and i hardly even like how it came out , , , do people even still write for teyam anymore i haven’t been here for a while . . . i really just wanted to write something sinceeee i plan to write for other characters from avatar and other place so yup yup uh-huh i’m back (maybe) i think the concept of this fic was at least ok . . . can other avatar superfans like correct me on this because i always wondered how exactly na’vi without ikrans would be able to get down from high-camp and go about their business if they were even allowed to ? ? ? ykwim it just made sense to me this is pretty self-indulgent i think though sooooo lmk if this makes sense at all anyways ! ! ! i think i’m just gonna stick to short blurbs without defined plots or structure like this became WORD VOMIT is my speciality (๑>•̀๑) in terms of character’s i’ve been JOTARO KUJO pilled as of late so who knows . . . might drop smth for him BUT ANYWAYS umm ily guys i’m so happy for all my followers are you guys even still here