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@l-auteur-fleur
introducing….
“Trio” by Victoria Keeble
m.list ⭐️
as i am rather new at this, i will not be accepting requests. maybe this will change one day!
you can find all my works under the tag #fin’s writing ! my reactions to other people’s work are under #fin’s reactions
hi hi hi !!
you can call me fin !! i’m just a girl in my 20s who can’t like anything casually :) i love stories and getting immersed into worlds with complex characters to befriend (in my mind).
i’ve never had much success on here (hence the lack of many works) but i decided to give it another try ! i’m very much just doing this for fun and to spend time with my favorite characters. please feel free to give me feedback ! it’s much appreciated :)
current obsession: jake sully (avatar, 2009)
btw: i don’t read or write smut bc i love Jesus !! it’s a personal conviction so i will not interact with or post nsfw content
@lejardinfleur is my personal blog!!
please don’t post my work anywhere else and please don’t steal it… because that would be mean. i do not give permission for the misuse and republication of my art. feel free to like, comment and reblog though :)
all my graphics are from @saradika-graphics and @angeliicide ! thank you both !!
being a writer is fun
Hi! I’m currently going thru ur Avatar fics rn and I really appreciate how you use Navi terms and put the translations in parentheses right after it!! (Cuz some authors don’t do that and they kinda expect you to either know the term already or look it up yourself. And when there’s a lot of terms it gets kinda annoying having to look eveything up LMAO and it kinda takes me out of the fic having to go back and forth between tumblr and safari) so I really like how you do your fics 🙂↕️🙂↕️ so THANK YOU for being an awesome author. Also love your stories they’re all so gooooood and well written 🥰
hi lovely anon !!!
thank you for taking the time to write such a sweet ask/message !! 🥹
i started out on tumblr as a reader and knew only the bare minimum of Na'vi, like skxawng, so i've always appreciated authors that included translations within the text too !! i knew i had to do the same for my fics once i started writing. one of my favorite authors and bestie @junebugonjupiter's work and formatting really informed mine !
THANK YOU so so much for reading my work and for your kind words !! 🥺 i've been struggling to find the motivation to keep writing and your message came in at the perfect time ! i'm so happy that you are enjoying my writing ♥️
Omg!! The parenthesis’s are just so much easier to use!! You deserve your flowers though! You always do so much research!!
doing my best not to botch a language i don't speak !! who knows if i'm even using it properly, but at least i tried !!
the parentheses are great, too, because i don't want to be looking up the lines I (eye) wrote in Na'vi with every re-read / while writing !
Hi! I’m currently going thru ur Avatar fics rn and I really appreciate how you use Navi terms and put the translations in parentheses right after it!! (Cuz some authors don’t do that and they kinda expect you to either know the term already or look it up yourself. And when there’s a lot of terms it gets kinda annoying having to look eveything up LMAO and it kinda takes me out of the fic having to go back and forth between tumblr and safari) so I really like how you do your fics 🙂↕️🙂↕️ so THANK YOU for being an awesome author. Also love your stories they’re all so gooooood and well written 🥰
hi lovely anon !!!
thank you for taking the time to write such a sweet ask/message !! 🥹
i started out on tumblr as a reader and knew only the bare minimum of Na'vi, like skxawng, so i've always appreciated authors that included translations within the text too !! i knew i had to do the same for my fics once i started writing. one of my favorite authors and bestie @junebugonjupiter's work and formatting really informed mine !
THANK YOU so so much for reading my work and for your kind words !! 🥺 i've been struggling to find the motivation to keep writing and your message came in at the perfect time ! i'm so happy that you are enjoying my writing ♥️
Hi! I love your Jake Sully fics smmm! I was wondering if you could do a female reader x Jake sully fic where reader is best friends with tsu’tey and they hang out a lot, go hunting together, bicker a lot, etc. and Jake gets jealous/ possessive and sulky about it. And it ends with lots of fluff btw reader and Jake 😂 thx!
Jealous Jake
Jake Sully x Reader
word count: 1.4k
a/n: yayy!! my first request. not sure if this was exactly what you wanted but i hope you enjoy!
Jake had expected mated life to be different. He had expected more time together, more intimacy. He had expected less of Tsu'tey.
But there in the training grounds, it was clear to him little had changed.
"Lift your arm. You are not a child." Tsu'tey directed you.
You hissed in return, "I do not need your help."
"Then be better."
You and Tsu'tey had always had an odd friendship. At first glance, it was easy to mistake it for more of an enemies sort of situation. Jake had thought so when he first came to the omaticaya. When you labelled Tsu'tey as a friend, he had assumed it was just a translation error, but he quickly figured that to be untrue. Because despite your bickering and snarking, you two were always together—a package deal he did not think would continue on when he became your mate.
Jake stood with his own bow, not far off from you both, shooting arrows at the painted targets in the tree trunks ahead. He tried to keep his focus but it was difficult. He couldn't help but tune into every interaction between you two from the corner of his eye.
Tsu'tey kicked your feet, forcing your stance a bit wider.
You whipped him on the hip with the end of your tail.
Something bubbled in Jake's chest. Something sour. He released an arrow, trying to focus on the way it soared straight to the center of the target.
Jake knew there was nothing between you two. You had simply been friends for far longer than you had known Jake. It was a relationship that existed for most of your lives. But, even knowing this, he could not help the small gnawing feeling in his chest every time you were with Tsu'tey.
Jake felt sick.
His stomach churned at the sight before him. Maybe he was being dramatic and maybe it was the overthinking getting to him, but watching you and Tsu'tey spar felt like hell.
Sure, he just had his turn against you, and sure he had watched you both spar together many times before without issue. But it was different now.
Because now he was your husband. Your mate.
And he felt thoroughly neglected.
He hated to admit it, but the lack of affection was really getting to him. It wasn't like you ignored him. You would press sweet kisses to his cheek, whisper words of love, but still he wanted more. Call him greedy but he had expected a sort of honeymoon phase after bonding, but there wasn't one. Things were just…normal. Maybe it was his fault for projecting earth traditions onto the bonding, but he did not care.
His face pulled tight in a childish pout. His eyes narrowed when you rolled over on top of Tsu'tey, pinning him down with a ghost knife in your hand ro his throat. Sweat dripped down both your forms, your chest heaving as you smirked down at your opponent who was not too pleased with having lost. Despite his twisted mouth, Tsu'tey clapped onto your waiting hand and let you pull him to his feet.
"Your skill is dwindling," you joked.
"It was simply bad luck," he excused.
You laughed.
Jake's jaw ticked, but immediately relaxed when your eyes fell on him. Your fingers beckoned him, and he mindlessly obeyed.
"Let us see who is the better of you two," you began to walk to where Jake was previously sitting, "may the winner have my favour."
Tsu'tey's face curled in disgust." I do not want your favour."
Jake tilted his head, muttering beneath his breath, "It's mine, anyway."
In the mornings, it was not unusual for you to leave your shared hammock before he even woke up. When most couples would stay in and cuddle, you would shoot up, grab your bow and stalk off, no doubt to find Tsu'tey.
Jake stared at the kelku roof in frustration. When he had woken up, you were already gone. Perhaps it's his own fault for not waking sooner but would it kill you to stay a little longer?
With a groan, he climbed out of the hammock, lazily wiping the sleep off his face and making his way outside. He squinted when the morning sun shone directly in his eyes, his hand coming up to block it.
There, in the distance, two figures disappeared into the treeline.
He knew immediately who it was.
His face scrunched.
He tried not to be too angry.
After all, you did tell him you were going on a hunt.
With a sigh, his shoulders drooped and he turned to start his day
A heavy mist settled over the forest quietly, clinging to treetops as Jake waited, his foot tapping against the ground impatiently, staring up into the sky.
You have yet to come home despite your promises of returning before nightfall. But now the sun had set and you and Tsu'tey remained unreturned.
Just as he was about to start pacing, a screech tore through the sky. He struggled to see through the thick fog, but before long two massive figures touched down on the clearing.
Jake all but ran to you just as you jumped off your ikran's back, grabbing at your shoulders and checking you over. Once satisfied, he sighed, "You're late."
Your mouth opened to respond but was cut off.
"Blame your mate." Tsu'tey had his back turned to you as he hauled the small hexepede over his shoulder.
"How is this my fault?" You turned to him in disbelief.
"If you had not missed, the hexepede would not have ran."
"We caught it in the end."
"We would have done so sooner, if not for you. Now we have barely made it in time to prepare it."
"Speak for yourself. I could skin and cook it just in time to eat."
Tsu'tey scoffed, "I have seen your knife skills. They leave much to be desired."
You tsked before turning to your mate. "I am sorry, ma Jake."
Jake looked at you with concerned eyes. "I was worried."
Your eyes softened, hand coming up to cradle the side of his face.
Tsu'tey barked out your name ahead of you.
"Yes," you ground out, already moving to follow.
"You're leaving? I barely saw you at all today." Jake whined, his eyes turning big and round to tempt you to stay.
You shot him an apologetic smile. "I must help prepare for dinner. I will return."
With a pat to his cheek, you and Tsu'tey sauntered off, leaving a dejected Jake by himself.
At dinner, Jake sat at the edge of the crowd, sipping on his third cup of wine as his eyes bore into you and Tsu'tey.
Not far away at all, you both sat side by side, conversing.
"I heard Neytiri was being courted," you leaned into him, voice a whisper to hide your gossip.
"Bless the poor soul who is brave enough," Tsu'tey huffed a short laugh, taking a bite of his skewer.
Jake's ears didn't pick up any of the words, too distracted by the way your shoulder brushed against Tsu'tey's. It was light. Inconsequential. Something that he had seen time and time before and should not be getting worked up about.
Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was the fact he had been deprived of your attention for too long, but either way, Jake got up, reaching for you.
Tsu'tey said something else, but before you could respond, Jake did.
"We're going home." You both blinked in surprise.
Then he grabbed your hand, dragging you towards your kelku, leaving a confused and stunned Tsu'tey.
"Ma Jake, wait—"
But he did not listen. All he heard was his own angry huffing as he pulled you inside. He made his way to the hammock, dropping in and pulling you onto his chest.
His arms wrapped around your midsection, trapping you against him. Burying his face in your braids, he inhaled deeply, breathing in your scent.
"Ma Jake?" You whispered, "What is wrong?"
He took another long breath before answering, "you spend too much time together"
"What?"
"You and Tsu'tey. You spend all your time with him."
You shifted in his hold, lifting your head to see the pout on his lips.
"Awe, Ma Jake…" you cooed. "Have I been neglecting you?"
He nodded solemnly.
"I am sorry. What must I do for you to forgive me?"
He thought for a second, more for show than anything, since he already knew the answer before you even asked the question.
"Spoil me a bit."
"Spoil you? You want to be coddled?" you chuckled.
He nodded against your hair.
"Very well," you wrapped your arms around him and tucked your face into his chest. "Whatever you want, ma Jake."
HELLO ??
this was so good !! the pacing was so well done and you captured Jake “touch starved” Sully perfectly !! poor guy just wants to be spoiled 😫 let me at him !!!
The Journey Home | Éomer Eadig
Word count: 2.8k
Pairing: Éomer x wife!reader
Description: The journey home can be cold and long without a merry band of Rohirrim and your husband, Eomer, to lighten the darkness
Content Warnings: fluff! takes place a year after the war of the ring, nonsexual shedding of clothes, making fun of friends, SFW.
Author's note: Happy Fourth of July, here's a Lord of the Rings fanfic lol. So, a little explanation for this one. The characters that you see in this fic are taken from my (unfinished) story on AO3 since I just wanted to add a cozy dynamic between friends. You do NOT have to go read it if you don't want to since this can be read as a standalone (but it's linked in my LotR masterlist if you did want to read it)! I hope you enjoy the story!
The sound of hearty laughter rang throughout the camp. Men and women emboldened by the drinks in their hands let their joy ring like bells now that evil was vanquished and the world was slowly returning to how it should have been.
No more orcs roamed the lands of men and no more towers oppressed them from above. There were only kind kings and kinder peoples. Light had come creeping back into Rohan and you were glad for it. Happiness had returned and there was singing in the halls of their Lords once again.
The King’s escort held a camp of nearly 50 people, with the masses split up and by separate fires as they combated the cold, mid-autumn night. You were glad that your small company was managing to stay warm nearly by laughter alone, although the fire and drink helped tremendously.
Meat sizzled on the fire in front of your group. Éothain and Leofred, the king's fellow riders, sat across from you. The king's sister, Éowyn, and her husband, Faramir, sat in the circle as well. Sunniva and Estrild, Leofred’s wife, sat beside you as your friends and ladies maids.
Tomorrow, the entourage would embark on the last leg of your trip back home to Edoras, and spirits were high. The Rohirrim had been visiting King Aragorn in Gondor for the past few weeks for reasons of diplomacy as well as the friendship between kings. Although Aragorn was his loyal friend and he enjoyed the sights of the White City, Éomer was overjoyed to return home with his sister, who longed for the golden halls of Meduseld after looking on the silver of Minas Tirith for so long.
“Look at the stars, they are winking down at you, my love,” Faramir whispered to Éowyn, just barely loud enough for the group to hear. The other married men immediately scoffed goodnaturedly at his softness, despite each of them having said equally gentle things to their own wives. Éowyn’s pale cheeks turned pink at the pretty words her husband was attempting to string together for her.
“Alright, alright,” the king huffed, “You are no poet, my friend. My sister may entertain your words, but we should not have to endure them.”
The group shook with laughter, Éowyn most of all. Faramir gave an amiable shrug at his brother-in-law’s teasing with no regret in his heart. Yet, he did not argue that his words were any better than what the king made them out to be.
“Stop teasing them, Éomer, dear,” you said through your smile. Your husband turned to you, his yellow hair shining in the light of the fire and making it look like polished gold. “Not everyone can write songs as well as you. What is it again that you wrote at Pelennor? “Out of the doubt, out of the dark with the sun’s rising. I came… ugh, Bema,” you stalled, thinking over the words. “Leofred, how did it go?” you asked your friend, your memory utterly defeated.
He smirked, more than ready to answer, “Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising. I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing,” he opened his mouth to continue, but Éomer cut him off with a gruff clearing of his throat and a look that would intimidate most of his men.
“If you know what is good for you, stop there,” Éomer warned. “Both of you,” he added, gently poking your side in the spot he knew would make you dissolve into laughter. “I know better than to tell my friend anything that my wife might mock me for,” he muttered. You let out a giggle at the ticklish feeling of his hand at your ribs, your breath leaving a white cloud hanging in the air. He laughed too as you squirmed and he pulled you to his side, tucking you in safely under his thick cloak that was lined in grey fur.
“I do not know which newlywed couple is more unbearable,” Estrild rolled her eyes, even as she grinned a little.
“Thank the Valar we were never like that,” Estrild noted.
“No, you were far worse,” Sunniva muttered, taking a long swig of her drink as she looked into the fire.
“We were not!” Estrild insisted, looking to her husband for confirmation, but he winced and she knew that her friend was right.
You felt warm fingers wrap around your icy ones. “Your hands are so cold,” Éomer hissed like a worried mother hen and brought your hands to his lips, huffing warm air onto them. The sensation made your skin tingle, but you did not pull away. Not when he was looking at you as if you were made of starlight.
“The food is done, my king,” Éothain said from across the fire, pulling everyone's attention away.
“Good man,” Éomer said, wrapping your warming hands into his and setting them on his leg. “Let us eat then.”
“Éothain, thank you for cooking the food, let another serve it,” Éowyn insisted.
“I do not mind, my lady,” Éothain insisted with a shrug.
“What a fine idea,” you nodded, getting up with Éowyn and pulling your hands out of Éomer's grasp, even as the cold set back into them.
Éothain backed away from the fire and roasting spit as Éowyn shooed him to go sit back down. You quickly gathered the plates and set about pulling the pot from the fire which held vegetables.
“Well, if the queen is working, then I would be a poor husband to sit idly by and watch,” Éomer nodded, standing up and pulling his cloak straight over his shoulders. “The fire is getting low, I will go find more fuel for it,” he announced and stepped over the small bench he had been sitting on.
“Do not wander too far,” you called worriedly, thinking of whatever leftover dregs of evil creatures that could still be lurking near the foot of the White Mountains.
“Yes, ma’am,” he called back with a proud tinge to his voice. He picked up a hatchet and carefully swung it over his shoulder before disappearing into the dark patch of woods.
“What is she worried over? Our king is the size of a bear and a war hero. I fear far more for whatever the man might stumble across,” Leofred teased, saying the joke to Faramir who laughed.
You cut him a nasty look. “I will fret if I see fit too. Bema knows how many situations you two have found yourselves in on the road. I did not complain then, and I will not now, but I have every reason to wish well for our king, and you would be a poor subject and poorer friend if you did not do so as well,” you corrected him. The slight smile playing on your lips told the group that you were not chastising your friend.
Estrild and Sunniva snickered at the retort, covering their mouths with their hands. “Of course, my queen. Forgive me,” Leofred said sincerely.
“I usually side with you, your grace, but I agree with Leofred on this one. My brother singlehandedly killed two oliphaunts at Pelennor Fields. I saw it with my own eyes. I trust he could face down the odd beast just fine on his own,” Éowyn said, a playful smirk on her lips.
“Éowyn!” you pretended to be offended. “I shall have you put in a cell as soon as we return home for this slight
“If he does not return, then I will put myself in one,” she amended.
The group laughed and cut up while you worked. Éowyn cut the meat as you prepared plates and delivered them to each of your companions, Éothain first.
By the time Éowyn was sitting back down with her food, Éomer was back with his arms full of dry sticks and cut logs of a felled tree his soldiers had found earlier in the day. You were relieved to have him back in your sights again. In moments like these, you were reminded of how dark the past days were and how anxiety for other’s wellbeing had become a constant companion to you.
“It seems you will not spend your first night back home in the dungeons after all,” you teased Éowyn.
Éomer’s forehead wrinkled in confusion as Éowyn barked a laugh. “Did Éowyn get into that much trouble while I was away?”
“Of a sort,” Faramir smiled knowingly.
You had just pulled out half of the spit from the hard ground with great exertion before Éomer’s return. Leofred offered to help you, but you had insisted on doing it yourself before accounting for the frozen ground. You were about to move to the other side when Éomer walked past the other half and, with little thought on the matter, pulled the iron spit out of the ground with a single, strong hand with ease.
Your eyes flew to his, even as your knees turned to jelly at the display of his strength.
“Thank you,” you murmured, standing up and pulling your cloak tightly around you so it did not get blown into the fire. “I was going to do that,” you uttered.
Éomer raised an amused eyebrow at your complaints, as he dropped the wood into a pile in the grass and bent down to add kindling to the fire. “And now you do not have to. Eat your supper,” he nodded to where Éowyn had set your plate. It was growing cold, so you relented and turned to go back to your seat.
The circle was mostly quiet as the people in it ate their suppers, thinking of the next night where they would get to feast like kings in the warm Hall of Meduseld. You looked forward to it as well, even though tonight was not so bad. Éomer sat back down at your side and his heat drew you in like a moth to a flickering flame. You tucked into his side, drawing from his warmth without words being exchanged. You both found your places beside each other as if it was practiced.
“I am afraid I will not last long upright if I stay up much longer,” Leofred admitted, breaking the comfortable silence as he put his empty plate down.
“Already?” Éomer asked, “the night is still young.”
“But I, my friend, am not,” Leofwine chuckled.
“Estrild, you will have to help your ailing husband to his cot before he keels over,” Éowyn teased.
Estrild placed her own empty plate down. “I am not much better for it,” she smiled, stretching her hands up into the night sky and standing with a hand from her husband.
“Goodnight,” you all called out to the retreating couple.
“I better go too,” Sunniva said, standing with stiff legs.
“I, as well,” Éothain nodded, shoveling the last of his food into his mouth.
“What? Why are our friends abandoning us?” you asked into the night.
“Perhaps they grow bored with us,” Éowyn agreed with you.
“That is not it,” Sunniva smiled at her two closest friends. “As if I could.”
“You will regret those words one day,” Faramir said, knowing how much trouble his wife and sister-in-law could get into.
“Never,” Sunniva doubled down as Éowyn elbowed Faramir for the insult.
“Goodnight,” you wished her and she said the same to you in return.
“Goodnight, your Grace, my King,” Éothain lowered his head to both you and Éomer in such a formal manner that you nearly laughed.
“Get out of here, Éothain. Sleep well, cousin,” Éomer chuckled, waving his uptight friend away. In the low light, you could see Éothain grinning lightly, a rare sight for the young man who had always been wound a little too tightly.
“That leaves just us then,” Faramir noted, taking a drink from his cup of ale.
“That leaves just you two,” Éomer corrected, standing and pulling you up with him.
“It does?” you asked, confused. You had wanted to stay a little longer.
“We have a long journey home tomorrow. We should all get our rest,” Éomer explained as he took your empty plate and stacked it with the others to be cleaned in the morning.
“You are a spoil sport, brother,” Éowyn complained.
“I am a soldier who has to be up at the rise of dawn,” he refuted.
“You are our King. You should sleep in as long as you wish,” you reminded him.
“Perhaps when we are old, but unlike Leofwine, we are not quite there yet,” he smiled, tugging you away to the largest tent covered in green and gold. “Goodnights” echoed in the darkness as they bade you a good night's rest and you did the same back to them.
“It is cold and growing colder still,” Éomer complained, holding the flap open for you to cross under. Even once you were inside the woolen tent, the frigid air still nipped at your skin. There were a few lanterns lit in the small space, giving the room a hazy glow. You were quick to peel off your cloak and your topdress, leaving a woolen tunic, your chemise, and various undergarments that you had stacked for warmth in this biting cold.
You paid no mind to Éomer who looked to be following a similar pattern, as you dove under the linens, wools, and furs that stacked the thin mattress afforded to the royal couple.
“Hurry,” you urged through chattering teeth.
“So impatient,” Éomer hummed, although you noticed the shaking of his hands and the way his jaw clenched to keep it from chattering.
“I am telling you to hurry, because someone placed a warming pan in the bed,” you laughed. “The chill is more than tolerable under here.”
Éomer’s eyebrows flew up and he quickened to shed his belt and topmost layer of clothes. He slipped under the covers and immediately sighed in relief.
“Thank the Valar,” he said under his breath, opening his arm to you and letting you burrow into his side. Your bones nearly melted at the feeling of finally being so warm and comfortable after hours of the growing cold.
“You should find out who gave us this gift and knight them,” you murmured into his shoulder, your eyes drifting closed at the cozy feeling overwhelming you.
“As soon as the sun rises, whatever they wish for is my command,” he promised, bringing his hand to your back and making soft circles with his thumb on your skin.
“I do not know who is luckier, us for getting warm, or them, who will get their wish granted over a simple warming pan.”
“Nothing simple about it, my love. This is worth all the coins in the treasury, to have you in my arms and warmth at my feet,” he said and you smiled, lips curling against his woolen shirt.
“Aye, nothing compares to this, at least not tonight. Ask me again under the warmth of the summer sun, and I might have a different answer,” you pointed out.
“By that time, you will be wishing desperately for a chip of ice and a fan to wave in your direction,” he teased.
“Do not even speak of ice or I will freeze all over again,” you muttered, “I can currently think of nothing I would want less.”
“Then sleep, wife,” Éomer urged. “Tomorrow we will be in front of the roaring hearths of Meduseld with barely a thought of the biting chill.”
“I can barely wait for it,” you sighted. You could hardly contain your excitement at the thought of cresting over the last hill on your steed and seeing the Golden Hall in all its glory. “Although, I did not mind the warmer climate of the south.”
“Aye, that is true,” Éomer nodded, his eyes growing heavy. “Autumn will be weeks yet away for the sparkling shores.”
You hummed in thought, the sunsoaked seaside sounding delightful to you. “In that case, I wish to go back to Gondor this very instant,” you teased, feeling a little delirious from sleeplessness.
Éomer’s chest rumbled with quiet laughter. “Of course. I will go where you lead, my Queen. Perhaps, when we get there, I will build you a cottage where we can live out the rest of our days avoiding winter and frolicking in the sand.”
You giggled at the thought of your husband building a sandcastle. “That sounds like a decent way for us to live out our days. Although… it is quite warm under here, maybe we should set off for the shore tomorrow instead.”
“I know that you jest, but know that Cook will likely skin us both if we do not attend the feast she has been planning since our departure.”
“Hmmm, good point. Upsetting that woman is not for the weak or the cowardly,” you mumbled, your words slurring. “Edoras it is then.”
“Edoras it is,” Éomer repeated fondly, noting the way your breathing slowly evened out.
Within moments, you would fade into a hardy and long sleep, safe in only arms that would never let go.
All fandoms taglist: @zzma-rs @lejardinfleur @kazgiena @belanekra @theselkieprincess @23victoria @wittiestrain184 @justpuretrash
Lord of the Rings Taglist: @th3realslimb1tch
june !! the first few paragraphs had me in my feels 🥺 so beautifully written and captures the restoration of peace so well !! i literally felt joy rise up in me.
EEK the vibes are simply too good !!! the fluff was FLUFFY and the banter between friends was so entertaining and warm. so freaking cute and sweet !!!
i really liked this line:
“The other married men immediately scoffed goodnaturedly at his softness, despite each of them having said equally gentle things to their own wives.”
i’ve always known your attention to detail was phenomenal but your ability to produce such immersive fics for multiple fandoms is so impressive !!
and it must be nice to write about different kinds of clothing after all that avatar !!
well done bestie !!! so so good !!
Hey, can y'all let me know if anyone has stolen my fics, please? 😭
This!!! I don’t know what is going on with a lot of my mutuals and people I follow with their fics being stolen, and that is crazy and terrifying! Why would anyone steal another’s work? Fanfic writers are NOT getting paid to write! We do not ask for much but to NOT steal our work or put it through AI. We writers write because we love it! We write because it is fun and a creative, freeing space. I think it’s so uncreative, uninspiring, and just horrible for another person to plagiarize , damn near copy pasting writers work !!
like, please be creative and come up with something original. if you like someone else’s work, how about you ASK the creator if you can use a similar idea? And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GIVE CREDIT, no matter what!!
i can’t express it enough STOP AND DO NOT STEAL, PLAGIARIZE OTHERS WORKS!!
(it’s insane that i even have to say this )
What I Let Inside
Title
The Thing I Let Inside
Summary
After Hometree falls, Neytiri sits among the survivors with her father's bow and a sickness in her stomach that will not lift. Jake knew the fire was coming and said nothing — and the worst of it is not the betrayal, but the part of her that still turns toward the smoke, hoping he survived.
Warnings Deals with subjects like betrayal, lying, self-disgust, death
WC 5,015
They would not look at her. She did not blame them. She could not look at herself either.
They had stopped moving sometime before dawn.
There was no Hometree to run back to, and no Hometree to run toward. So the People had gone to the only place left to them, the place that had never been theirs to own, because it had always belonged to Eywa.
They had carried the children and dragged the wounded through the dark until the ground itself began to glow beneath their feet, until the great pale willow-fall of Vitraya Ramunong rose out of the night above them, and there, beneath the Tree of Souls, in the one part of the forest the Sky People's fire had not yet found, they had folded down among the glowing roots to grieve.
It was the most sacred place the People had. The Well of Souls, where the voices of the ancestors could be heard in the willow-strands, where one could lie down and make tsaheylu with Eywa herself and never, in all the world, be alone.
That was what her mother had always taught her, what Neytiri had believed her entire life.
She sat a little apart, where the firelight did not quite reach, and held her father's bow across her knees.
It was too long for her. Eytukan had been a tall man and the great bow had been made to his arm, and when she gripped it the curve of it rose past her shoulder like something that did not yet know its owner was gone. She did not try to make it fit. She only held it, both hands closed around the wood that his hands had worn smooth over a lifetime, as if by holding it she could keep some last warmth in it before the night took that too.
He had put it into her hands himself. Protect the People. She kept hearing it. She would hear it, she suspected, for the rest of her life. It had not sounded like a gift. It had sounded like a sentence handed down to her.
Across the clearing her mother moved among the wounded.
Mo'at did not weep. There was no time in her for weeping; that was the terrible discipline of the Tsahìk, to carry the People's grief without being permitted her own. She knelt beside a girl with a burned arm and spoke low and steady, and her hands were sure, and her voice did not shake, and Neytiri watched her mother hold the whole clan upright by will alone and understood that her father was not the only thing she had lost in the fire. Her mother had become, overnight, something that could not afford a daughter.
Mo'at had not looked at her. Not once, in all the long hours. Not when they fled, not when they stopped, not now. Her mother's eyes moved across the survivors, counting, tending, keeping, and passed over the place where Neytiri sat without once stopping there.
Tsu'tey was Olo'eyktan now.
No one had said the words over him. There had been no time, no Tree, no ceremony, only the plain fact of it, settling cold and certain over the camp. He walked the edges of the gathered People with his spear in his hand and his jaw set, and where he passed, backs straightened and frightened eyes lifted. He spoke to the hunters. He spoke to the elders. He spoke to the boys who were suddenly going to have to be men.
He did not speak to her.
Once, only once, she had felt his gaze cross her, and then move on, deliberate as a turned shoulder.
He was angry with her. She knew it as surely as she knew the weight of the bow across her knees; she did not need him to turn his face to her to feel the heat of it, banked and silent behind everything he did. And beneath the anger, worse than the anger, she felt the other thing: that he blamed her. That he was right to.
For it was she who had found the dream-walker in the forest and not put an arrow through him. It was she who had spoken for him, who had said that Eywa had sent a sign. It was she who had taught him: the names of things, the paths through the high branches, the draw of the bow, the calls of the hunt, the bonding of the ikran, tsaheylu itself, every secret the Omaticaya had ever kept. It was she who had brought him into the heart of the clan and stood beside him while he was named one of the People. It was she who had led him beneath the Tree of Voices, in the violet light of its hanging tendrils, with no eyes upon them. And it was to him that she had given her heart, and her body, and her mind, all three, freely, keeping nothing back.
Every door the Sky People had walked through to reach this ruin, she had opened with her own hands. Tsu'tey did not need to say it. The accounting was hers, and she had made it herself, over and over, all through the long night, and every time it came out the same.
She did not want him to speak. That was the worst of it. If he had come to her with rage she could have met rage; his silence she had no weapon against.
No one spoke to her.
It was not an order. No one had to give it. It moved through the camp on its own, the silent understanding of people who had shared one mind their whole lives: a current, a leaning-away, a small constant adjustment of every body in the clearing so that none of them quite faced the place where she sat. Children who would once have climbed into her lap were steered elsewhere by hands on their shoulders. Hunters she had run beside since girlhood found other things to look at. She had been, only a day ago, the daughter of the Olo'eyktan and the Tsahìk, marked from birth, the cleverest of her generation, beloved.
Now she was the open door. The one who had taken the dream-walker to her bed and her bond and called it love.
She knew what they saw when they did not look at her. She knew what they felt, because she had felt it her whole life from the inside and could read it on the People as easily as weather. It was not hatred; hatred would have been hot and she could have warmed her hands at it. This was colder. This was the recoil of the body from a thing gone wrong in it. They looked away from her as though she carried disease.
But it was not only disgust. Disgust she had been ready for; she had felt it in the averted eyes the moment the truth was known. It was the other thing, beneath it, that she had been slower to name and that frightened her more once she had. Distrust. For disgust looked backward, at what she had already done. Distrust looked forward. She caught it in the flick of the hunters' eyes to her and away: not only recoiling, but checking, the wary glance one keeps on a thing that has already shown it cannot be relied upon. She had opened the heart of the clan to a mate who had known the fire was coming and said nothing, and a door that has been opened once is never again trusted to stay shut. They did not know what else she might let through. Whether she could be turned a second time. Whether, if the Sky People came to the willows with their machines and their soft words, the daughter of the Tsahìk would once more prove the soft place in the People's wall. She was no longer only shamed. She was no longer safe to stand beside.
The sickness lived in her stomach.
It was not grief; grief sat higher, in the chest and the throat. This was lower, and older, the body's own verdict: a deep, churning roll that had nothing to do with hunger or smoke. She had felt it first when the truth was spoken aloud, and it had not left her since. It rose whenever her mind went where she would not let it go, and her mind went there constantly, helplessly, the way the tongue goes to a broken tooth.
The night before.
Always the night before. Not the fire, not the falling Tree, not her father's last breath; those her mind could hold at arm's length, for a moment, here and there. It was the night before all of it that she kept returning to, dragged back hand over hand no matter how she fought it: the violet light of the Tree of Voices, his hands, her own terrible certainty. What she had done. What she had given.
She had given him everything.
Not been taken from, not coaxed, not tricked into the giving; she had offered it, gladly, with both hands open: her body, her breath, the deepest threads of her mind. She had believed she was giving herself to her mate. She had believed it was the most true thing she would ever do.
And he had taken it knowing what was coming.
That was what turned her stomach — that he had let her give, that night of all nights. He had received the whole of her with those careful hands she had mistaken for reverence; he had been inside her body and inside her mind in the same hour; and he had known, the entire time, every breath of it, that the Sky People were coming for Hometree, that the fire was already set against everyone she loved, and he had said nothing. He had held the death of her world behind his teeth and breathed her name with the same mouth. He had taken the most that she had to give and taken it like a thief, quietly, smiling, while she called it love.
Her stomach rolled again. She pressed the back of her wrist hard to her mouth and breathed through it and did not let herself be sick.
But the body knew. The body had known before her mind would let her. It was trying, even now, to be rid of him, to purge the thing she had welcomed, to empty out the place where he had been. It could not. There was nothing in her she could bring up that would carry him with it. He was further in than that. He was in the part of her that had said yes.
And when the memory came, it did not come as the violation her stomach insisted it had been. That was the cruelty of it. It came back whole, and tender, exactly as she had lived it.
The violet light had moved over them both like water. He had touched her carefully, as though he did not quite believe he was permitted to, and he had said her name in that voice that was not a voice of the People, Neytiri, and somewhere in the dark it had stopped mattering to her that it was not. She had taken the end of her queue in her hand, and he had taken his, and she had watched the fronds open and reach and find one another of their own accord; and when the bond closed and she felt him rush into her — his fear, his wonder, the whole bright clamor of his wanting — she had thought, with the whole of her body: there is nothing hidden here. I have all of him. There is no part of this that is not true.
He had set his forehead against hers and she had felt his heart going hard and been certain it was going for her. I see you, he had said, into her skin, more than once, like a man saying a thing he has only just found and cannot keep behind his teeth. I'm with you. And she had believed it past the reach of doubt, because the bond lay open between them and she had felt no lie in him — only the warmth, and the wanting, and beneath those a faint trembling she had taken for the terror of being loved.
And that was the unbearable thing, the thing her body could not heave up no matter how it tried: even now, knowing all of it, she could not find the lie in the memory. She went back over it and back, looking for the seam, for the false note, for the place where he must have been performing. It was not there. The bond had been open. Whatever he had kept from her in words, the bond had not kept. Which left her two truths and no way to choose between them: that he had found some way to lie even through tsaheylu, where no one could lie — or that he had not been lying at all, that he had held her like that and meant every thread of it, and had let her world burn anyway.
Beneath the anger there was something worse, and quieter.
A sadness so deep and so still that it felt less like a feeling than like a place: a cold weight set into the bone where the marrow should be, that no fire could reach to thaw.
A part of her had died.
She knew it the way she knew her father was dead, with the same flat, bottomless certainty. Something in her had ended in the smoke, some green and living thing that had trusted the world, had trusted him. And now she was carrying the body of it and did not know where to lay it down.
People spoke of grief as a wound, but a wound healed, or else it killed you and was done. This was neither. This was simply gone, a hollow where something used to be, and she would have to rise in the morning and keep walking with the hollow in her, and she did not know how. She only knew that no one would carry her, and that she could not stay here in the dark forever, and that the not-knowing-how would have to walk beside her like one more thing she had no choice but to bear.
And it would not stay dead. That was the cruelty she had not expected: that a thing could be gone and still refuse to leave. She had heard the old hunters speak of it: how a man who lost a hand to a palulukan might go on feeling the fingers for years afterward, reach with them, wake in the dark certain he could still close them. That was what he had become in her. Cut away, and there all the same. Even now, even here, with the smoke of her father's home still caught in her hair, she could feel the broad warm weight of his hand at the small of her back, resting where it had learned it was welcome; she could find his scent beneath the burning if she breathed wrong, the strange warmth of him she had long since stopped finding strange, the smell she had pressed her face into and called home; and deeper than either, in the place no fire and no washing would ever reach, she could still feel him: the ache of where he had been, the bond he had threaded through the center of her and torn loose in the leaving. He had not taken a part of her when he went. He had left it, and made it useless, the way a limb is useless once the thing that moved it is gone.
And all around her the People mourned. Their true dead: her father, the burned, the ones the fire had swallowed who had never told a single lie in their lives. And she sat in the middle of them grieving a living man, her traitor body still curved around the ghost of his hands, still reaching, even now, for fingers that were not there. That was the thing she could not forgive. Not his betrayal. Her own sorrow. That some deep animal part of her was sick with the missing of him, here, tonight, with her father's ash not yet cold, while her people wept for the ones that he had killed. Her grief disgusted her the way her own body did, and she could no more stop the one than the other.
She did not know if Jake was dead.
The thought kept circling back, patient and pitiless, no matter how many times she drove it off. She had not seen him fall. Whatever else she had seen in the smoke and the screaming (and there was a thing there she would not let herself turn and look at, a thing she kept behind a shut door in her mind), she had not seen the end of him. He had gone where she could not follow, into the worst of the fire, and now somewhere under the embers or somewhere beyond them he was either breathing or he was not, and she did not know which.
She did not know which reality was worse.
Two things pulled at her, and they pulled in opposite directions, and she could feel them as plainly as hands laid on her body. One had hold of her spine. It pulled her backward, toward the smoke, toward the ruin. Go, it said, get up, go back, find him, make sure he made it out. It did not argue. It did not reason. It simply pulled, low and constant and animal: her body turning toward him before her mind had decided anything at all. Some part of her needed, with a need that had nothing to do with what she had decided to feel, to know that he was alive. To find him breathing. To put her hands on him and feel the warmth still in him.
She hated that part. She hated it more than she hated him.
Because the other part hoped the Tree had crushed him. Hoped the great burning weight of Hometree had come down on him in the dark and ended it cleanly. Hoped the fire had found him and taken him as it had taken everything else she loved. And it hoped this not only for him. It hoped the fire had taken, along with him, the part of her that still, even now, even sick to the marrow with it, even disgusted past all bearing, loved him.
If he were ash, the bond would go quiet one day, fray and fade, and she would be left never knowing whether what she had felt through it had been real. Death would let him keep the secret of whether he had ever loved her. Once, that had seemed the worst thing she could imagine. Now she half-prayed for it. Let him keep the secret. Let the not-knowing be the price — if the price bought the death of the thing in her that still, against all sense, against her father's body and her people's ash, went on hoping he had survived.
The bond gave her no answer.
Tsaheylu had made them one flesh of thought, once, in the violet light of the Tree of Voices, and she had thought this is true, whatever else, this is true. If he were dead, surely she would feel it tear; she listened for the tearing, straining into the dark for a sound that might never come. And all around her the Tree of Souls breathed its endless soft whisper, every given-back soul the People had ever returned to Eywa murmuring in the glowing willow-strands near enough to touch. She sat in the heart of it, in the most crowded silence in the world, and the one voice she strained for did not come, and the Great Mother who held all the others would not tell her whether the soul she had bound to her own still burned out in the dark, or had already gone to ash.
She could not even tell what the silence meant: that he lived, or that the bond had been a lie from the first, that there had never been anything truly joined to break. She should not have been listening. She listened anyway.
Neytiri straightened the bow across her knees.
Her father's hands had made it smooth. Her mother's silence had made it heavy. Across the clearing the new Olo'eyktan kept the People standing by the strength of his back, and the Tsahìk kept them breathing by the strength of her will, and neither of them had looked, in all the long hours, at the girl in the dark who had helped to bring the fire, and the girl in the dark had agreed with them, and held her father's bow, and did not know if she wanted the man she had loved to be alive or dead, and could not forgive herself for either answer.
The sky beyond the willows of Vitraya Ramunong began to gray.
She did not rise. To rise would be to choose, and she could not choose: not between the half of her that prayed him dead and the half that strained toward the smoke; not between the People who would not look at her and the man who had taught her hands to open every door. So she stayed where she was, a little apart, where the firelight did not reach, the bow that was too long for her held across her knees, and she let the two halves of herself tear at one another in the dark, because there was nowhere left to set either of them down.
She did not go to find him. She told herself it was for the People. She knew it was because she was afraid of what her own feet might do.
She did not hear her mother come.
She who had marked every body in the camp turning from her all night, who had counted the averted eyes as her mother counted the wounded, did not feel the Tsahìk cross the clearing until she was already lowering herself to the ground at her side. Close. Closer than anyone had come since the fire. Neytiri went rigid, every muscle bracing for the thing she had waited for all night: the word, the judgment, the sentence spoken at last by the one mouth in all the world that could make it final.
It did not come.
For a long while her mother only sat, looking not at her but out into the same graying dark, close and wordless. When at last Mo'at moved, it was to reach over and close her hand around the back of Neytiri's neck, the old grip, the one from childhood, her palm settling warm at the nape, the place a mother takes hold of a child to steady her. And Neytiri felt the long night crack open down its center, because she had been so certain that hand was lost to her.
"You have been telling yourself a story all night," Mo'at said. Her voice was low and worn to the grain, and it did not shake. "I have watched you tell it. I know it well. It is the one I would tell, in your place. That I cannot look at you. That my eyes slide past you because you sicken me. You have built it stone by stone, and laid yourself down beneath it."
Neytiri could not answer. She had. She had built exactly that, all night, and believed every stone of it.
"I have not looked at you," Mo'at said, "because if I let my eyes find my living child for even one breath, I will lie down in these roots and I will not rise again, and there are wounded who will not last to morning if I do. That is the whole of it. Not disgust. Discipline." The hand at her neck tightened, once. "Do not put your shame into my mouth, daughter. I did not speak it. I will not."
And then, quieter, the thing Neytiri had not let herself imagine: "He never left my side. Not in any of it."
Neytiri went still.
"When the great trunk came down, I would not have reached the ground alive. My legs are old and slow, and I had already stopped trying. I had made my peace; it was not a bad place to die. It was the dream-walker who would not let me stop. His hand was under my arm the whole way down through the smoke, turning my face from the burning, pulling me on when I had no will left to walk. And when the Sky People's fire came again and the air went to flying wood, he put me down beneath him and covered me with his own body, and took into his back the shards that were meant for me. I felt his heart going against my shoulder, fast as the heart of a trapped yerik. A lie does not bleed for an old woman it has no more use for." Mo'at was silent a moment. "And when it was past, he was up and gone, not away from the fire but back into it, into the worst of it. He did not go for the wounded. He went to find you." A breath. "I have asked myself all the long night what kind of lie does such things. I have not found the answer. Perhaps he was a lie that came to love us in spite of itself; I am too old and too tired tonight to say. But I will not let you flay yourself for having seen something worth loving in a thing that walked and breathed beside you. I saw it too. At the end, I saw it too."
Her mother did not know the rest. She could not. She had been down in the dark and the smoke with her face turned from the worst of it, and to her the story ended there, with him going back to look. But Neytiri knew how it ended, because she had been the thing he found.
He had come to her through the fire, calling her name in that borrowed voice, and she had been on her knees in the ash with her father already going cold beneath her hands. She had turned and seen him — alive, whole, his Sky-face streaked black and reaching for her — and something in her had torn loose and gone for him like an animal. She did not remember the words. She remembered only that her own voice had not sounded like hers. She remembered striking his hands away, screaming at him to get back, get away, from her father, from her, from all of it, and she remembered his face as she did it, how it came apart, how he stopped reaching and only stood and took it, and then turned, and went back into the burning, because she had told him to. That was the part she had told no one. He had crossed the whole ruin to reach her, past every reason to run the other way, and she had driven him into the flames with her own voice; and she did not know, might never know, whether she had sent him to his death.
And the thing Neytiri had held upright all night, the rigid thing that had not let her be sick, had not let her weep, had not let her be seen, gave way. Not all at once. It went the way a dam goes: a fault, and then the fall. She bent forward over her father's bow with her mother's hand still warm on her neck and made a sound she did not know as her own.
Mo'at gathered her in. She did not promise it would pass. She did not say her daughter was without fault; she was Tsahìk, and would not speak what was untrue, and they both knew whose hands had opened the door. The sickness was still there, coiled and cold in Neytiri's stomach, turned inward where no one's arms could reach it; it had not loosened, and her mother did not pretend it had. Only this had changed: she did not have to hold it up alone. She wept into her mother's shoulder, for her father, for her people, for the green living thing in her that had died in the smoke, and, Eywa forgive her, with her mother's arms around her while she did it, for him too. For all of it at once, the grief and the shame of the grief, and Mo'at let her, and did not turn her face away.
"You are still my daughter," Mo'at said into her hair. "That, the fire did not take. That, you cannot give away, however hard you have tried tonight."
The sky went on graying beyond the willows of Vitraya Ramunong. Out past the smoke he was breathing, or he was not, and she still did not know, and the not-knowing still sat in her like a blade that would not be drawn. But she was not, after all, alone beneath the Tree of Souls. Her mother held her, and the ancestors murmured in the bright strands overhead, and she let herself be held. And even so — even held, even here, with her father's ash still in her hair and her people grieving all around her — she could feel it beneath everything else, the old animal pull, low and ceaseless and beyond reason: her own body turning toward the smoke, toward him, toward the place she had driven him into the fire. It cared nothing for who lay dead. It only pulled, as it had pulled all night, toward the one direction she had sworn she would not go. She let her mother hold her. And she did not stop wanting to go to him.
i know i say this often but i cannot say it loud enough: people who comment on fics, people who reblog posts and engage with fanworks are the people who generate community and without them fandom would be nowhere, so truly thank you for your presence, you make the world go 'round <3
so… writing is not going well
i’m really sorry to everyone who’s been waiting for new works 😭 i can’t seem to write anything good. it’s stressing me out 😀
but this storm shall pass !
Brother | Jake Sully
Jealousy in June Prompt: 28. There has been a major misunderstanding
Word count: 2.5k
Pairing: Jake Sully x Tsu'tey's Sister!reader, Tsu'tey and Arvok and Sister!reader (obv platonic)
Description: When you tell your brothers about your current insecurities, they take things a step too far in their defense of you.
Content Warnings: Weight is talked about, reader is gaining weight, takes place after movie 1, Tsu'tey lives AU, confrontation
Author's note: This was fun to write! And its something different imo! I went down a more protective path with this one, but still used a Jealousy in June Prompt!
“Tsu’tey?” you got the attention of your oldest brother as he helped you clean and cut fruit for lunch. Your mate was busy helping train the Omatikaya warriors today and planned to eat lunch with them to build morale and teamwork. You completely understood his reasoning, and was glad for the excuse to invite your brother to spend time with you instead.
“Yes, Tsmuke (sister)?” he replied, not looking up from the floor of you and Jake’s kelku (home) where you were both crouched. Tsu’tey had stopped by as requested between his patrol and his hunting duties. He was glad to know that his baby sister still wanted him around.
Jake stayed busy as Olo’eyktan, a position Tsu’tey had passed down to him when his own fate was up in the air during the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains. Ultimately, Tsu’tey had asked that Jake continue to lead when he had tried giving the title back to his healed brother-in-law. Tsu’tey found that he enjoyed having the pressure off of him for once in his life, and Jake thrived at making tactical decisions and delegating tough situations. Tsu’tey still operated as an advisor and as, what Jake called, “his general” of the warriors.
“I want you to be honest with me,” you urged, and this gained Tsu’tey’s attention fully.
He dropped the cut fruit in a basket and laid the knife down too. “What is it? Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” you assured him, but the sigh you released did not make him feel any less on edge. “I do not feel like I once did. I am afraid that I am not pretty anymore. Am I still… Do I look different?” you asked. The tone of your voice was raw and cracked wide open. Tsu’tey’s heart ached for his little sister.
“You are very pretty. Why would you say you are not?” Tsu’tey pushed, taking his sister's hands in his as another set of footsteps echoed just outside. You and Tsu’tey’s ears perked at the noise and your heads turned in the direction of the open entrance. Your other brother, Arvok, stood in the doorway, a tool he had borrowed from Jake a week ago clutched in his hand. He was obviously here to return it, but had stumbled onto your pity party instead.
You sighed in relief that it was not your mate, embarrassed at the idea of Jake finding you upset about something so trivial. Tsu’tey, who was also glad that it was not Jake, needed his sister to tell him more so he could properly lay into her mate with all the required information.
“What is the matter?” Arvok asked, his smile quickly replaced with a frown as he took in your teary eyes and Tsu’tey’s furrowed brow.
“It is nothing,” you shook your head, laughing humorlessly even as the first tear threatened to fall.
“It is not nothing. Do I need to kick the skxawng out so you will tell me?” Tsu’tey asked, making you form a small, genuine smile.
You shook your head, “No, Arvok can stay.” You looked up to your other brother with that same broken smile and Arvok felt his jaw clench. He would kill whoever did this to you.
“What is wrong?” he asked again, kneeling down next to you.
You pursed your lips. “I just need someone to tell me if I am ugly,” you groaned.
Arvok reared his head back in surprise. “What? You are not!”
“Tell me why you would say this,” Tsu’tey requested.
“No reason,” you shrugged, semi-relieved that they did not think you looked like a monster, but also regretting your choice of input since your brothers were fiercely protective of you, and saw their baby sister as perfect, no matter what you did. They were entirely biased.
“You would not say this for no reason,” Arvok pointed out. “Something must be bothering you to cause this.”
“I have gained weight recently,” you admitted.
Jake had noticed too. He would never say it, but you had caught him looking at your fuller breasts, the slope of your hips, the softness of your thighs and stomach. You had grown insecure in the past few weeks, hating to have his eyes on you, but hating even more to voice your concern and make him hyperaware of the change.
“I had not noticed. You look very much the same to me,” Arvok assured you, “But even so, that means you are well fed and live comfortably. Is that not a good thing? Do you remember the winters where we did not eat but once a day, how skinny and miserable we were?”
Tsu’tey ground his teeth. He hated the memories of those dark days when his younger siblings grew more and more gaunt and his parents became quiet. Eywa always provided, and she had when spring had come, but the time between nearly killed him from worry.
“Thank you, Arvok,” you smiled, your spirit settled at the reminder, glad to voice what had been gnawing at you for so long. Arvok turned his gaze to Tsu’tey who realized he should speak as well.
“You are beautiful, Tsmuke, both then and now. What does your mate say about this?” Tsu’tey asked. Surely, Jake was treating you well and telling you everyday how beautiful you were. But then again, if he had, then you would not need your brothers to assure you.
“He has not said anything,” you shrugged, but the upset look behind your eyes gave Tsu’tey a better guess at the truth. “We have not spoken about it, but…” you trailed off, unsure of what to say to not make Jake come across as a bad mate because he was not. You liked that your brothers and your mate were friends, you never wanted to give a bad impression of one about the other.
“But…” Arvok prodded for you to continue and your eyes widened.
“Nothing,” you said again, “I am just being insecure.”
Tsu’tey and Arvok’s eyes met over your head, both thinking the same thing. Rage simmered in their stomach’s at the thought of you being treated so coldly and being neglected by the man they thought had treated you like you hung the very stars in the sky.
“You should eat, we will see you later today,” Tsu’tey encouraged you.
You nodded, squeezing Tsu’tey’s hands that still gripped yours. Arvok wanted to stay until he had at least seen you eat a few bites, afraid that you would not eat, but Tsu’tey stood and nodded at him to follow. Purely because of the fury in his older brother’s gold eyes, Arvok was quick to get up and trail after him.
As soon as they were outside and had stomped far enough out of your earshot, Tsu’tey started sharing his thoughts.
“Jake must make amends for this. I have never seen her like this. There must be something he is doing to make her feel this way,” Tsu’tey growled, marching ahead to the training grounds where he knew Jake would be training the older teens.
“But she said that he had not spoken about it,” Arvok argued, quickening his pace to keep up.
“Maybe she lied to save his tail,” Tsu’tey pondered. “Something was not right in her way of speaking, something is off.”
“Our sister would not lie to us,” Arvok said, refusing to believe it.
“Perhaps his demon ways have rubbed off on her, I do not know. But I know something is being kept from us. I feel it,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Fine, then we will get the truth, one way or another,” Arvok relented. Tsu’tey nodded, glad to have his brother at his side as the training grounds and Jake came into sight.
“Keep your elbows up, defend!” Jake yelled brashly to a pair of young warriors who were sparring in the open field near the river. “Good! That’s it.”
“Suli!” Tsu’tey called, his steps were each sure and heavy.
Jake glanced away from the teens, but saw it was just his brothers and let his eyes go back to the fight. He was a dedicated teacher. “Tsu’tey, Arvok. What can I do for you?” he asked, even as he was looking in the wrong direction.
Tsu’tey’s eyes narrowed. “We need to speak with you,” he said as he stopped a few feet away from Jake. The young Na’vi warriors watched in nosy interest at what was so important that Tsu’tey would interrupt their chief and teacher.
“Can it wait a minute? I’m teaching the basics of-”
“It is about our sister,” Arvok interupted grimly.
“Stop,” Jake immediately barked at the two girls sparring in the ring and turned his full attention to the men. “Is she okay?” he asked, panic dripping from his question.
“She has brought up a concern with us and we feel it must be addressed with you,” Arvok continued. Tsu’tey crossed his arms over his chest.
Jake immediately tensed further. Although it was much better than his wife being hurt, it still made his heartbeat pick up. “Dismissed, get outta here!” he called to the trainees behind him and they scattered, knowing that Jake would not like telling them twice, not if it had something to do with his wife.
“I do not know how humans treat their mates, but on Pandora, we do not let them suffer alone,” Tsu’tey began his lecture as soon as most of the teens were on the other side of the clearing.
Jake grimaced in shock, his head inching back. “Suffer alone? What’s happening? Is my wife okay?” Jake asked, stressing the last question. Arvok’s fists balled up at his sides.
“You have ignored her, you have neglected the one Eywa has chosen for you. She would not tell us what you have done, but I am no idiot. I know she is protecting you,” Tsu’tey pressed on.
Jake’s lips pressed together in frustration. “I need to see my wife,” he decided, trying to brush past his brother’s-in-law and attempting to make it back to his kelku where he knew you would be making lunch. He knew you like the back of his hand, your schedule, your plans, your fears, your wants, your thoughts. He didn't need tsaheylu (the bond) to tell him that anymore, he knew you so well. So what could they possibly be talking about? Why had you told your brothers that you were suffering, and not him?
He felt panic claw at his gut, the fear of you distancing yourself from him was palpable. He had noticed the way you shied away from his hands and his attention in the past week, but he had chalked it up to all the changes going on recently. He had felt them in himself too, but he had thought you were going through this different stage together.
“We are the ones talking to you. You do not get to talk to her until we are through with you,” Tsu’tey said, stepping to the side so that he and Arvok made a wall that he could not cross through without a fight. Jake knew he could beat Tsu’tey one on one, he had done it when your brother learned of your mating all those months ago. But Jake had never fought Arvok, and he did not know what his chances were against both. If they did not tell him the problem now, he would have to test his luck in order to get to you.
“Get outta my way,” Jake said in a near growl. “You’re forgeting who you’re talking to.”
Tsutey’s lip curled. “I know exactly who I speak to. Olo’eyktan or not, you will treat my sister with respect,” he demanded, planing a flat hand on Jake’s chest and stopping him from getting any closer. Jake’s panicked and enraged expression only added to Tsu’tey’s anger.
“She’s not suffering alone,” Jake bit back, “You two don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't we? We were the ones she was just crying to because you made her feel ugly and unwanted,” Arvok spilled.
Jake physically took a step back, the news like a blow to his gut. “What?” he muttered, devastated.
“Explain yourself, Suli. If you wish to break the mating bond, I am forced to challenge you to protect the family honor,” Tsu’tey ground out, his voice like gravel as he said words he never thought he would have to say to his Olo’eyktan.
“Break the bond? I would never do that. I love my wife,” he insisted, his fist curling and unfurling as he attempted to keep his anger and anxiety in check. Jake ground his teeth, his disbelief evident on his face.
“Yet she is sitting in her kelku, alone and feeling discarded. If you do not like that she has simply gained weight, then you are a bigger kurkung (asshole) than I realized,” Tsu’tey hissed, stepping forward into Jake’s space.
Jake’s golden eyes nearly glowed at the anger simmering underneath the surface of his gaze. “I don't care if she's gained weight!” he exclaimed.
“So you notice that, but you do not notice our sister’s fears?” Arvok asked, brow low over his eyes.
“I haven't said a word about it, because I didn't want her to know I noticed. On Earth, women don't usually like you pointing that out. I had no idea she thought I didn't want her anymore. Let me through, let me fix it or I swear I’ll kill you both,” he demanded, his rage building.
“You should tell her everyday what you think of her. There should never be a question or a doubt in her mind,” Arvok argued, not paying anymind to Jake’s threats, his mind was clouded by anger.
“I do! But she’s had a lot of questions and doubts recently,” Jake muttered, letting his hand try to iron out the wrinkles on his forehead.
Arvok’s lip curled, “So you did know? You are a liar.”
Jake sighed, tired of the circle he kept being forced to run in. “I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone, but this is getting ridiculous. She’s gaining weight and insecure because she’s carrying my child. Did she tell you that?” Jake growled.
Tsu’tey and Arvok both blinked in surprise at the news, Tsu’tey stepping away from Jake. “What?” Arvok mumbled.
Tsu’tey glanced back at the home that contained his sister, all her emotional turbulence suddenly making more sense. He had been angry at Jake for making his sister act unlike herself, but it had truely been his little niece or nephew the whole time.
Jake stepped forward and this time, he was easily able to get through. “If you two don’t mind, I’m going to smooth some things over with my wife,” he grumbled, but paused and turned back to face them. “And you better not let her find out that you know, or she’ll skin all of us,” Jake suggested, knowing he was in deep if she found out that he told their secret before she was ready.
Tsu’tey nodded solemnly, and Arvok followed, albeit looking more cautious and awestruck. “Brother,” Tsu’tey called to Jake as he began in the other direction again.
“Yeah,” Jake said, looking a little worse for wear after all the badgering.
“Congratulations,” Tsu’tey said, his lips curling up into a grin.
Jake smiled back, nodding as he huffed a laugh. “Thanks, Brother.”
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JAKE “I LOVE MY WIFE” SULLY !!!
jake is only looking at his wife because he thinks she’s HOT !! (he told me this himself)
this was such a good read and i love how you explored the sibling dynamics 🥺
spoilers below
Arvok and Tsu’tey had Jake STRESSED !! stop pissing him off and get out of his way ! i actually found it so amusing (after the fact) that Jake was getting so fed up and Tsu’tey and Arvok just weren’t letting him go to reader 😭
them at the baby reveal 🧍🏽♂️oh
i loved how protective and caring Tsu’tey and Arvok are of reader 🥺 such good brothers !!! and the end was so cute ☺️ i really like the idea of Jake having brother-in-laws hehe
finally, happy father’s day to my husband Jake Sully 🤭
hi everyone !!
i’m back from a long trip that was keeping me away from writing (kinda) ! i have lots of WIPs but im planning to work on MDW 2 (and a part 3 it turns out) as well as my submission to @junebugonjupiter’s Jealousy in June event !!
bear with me though, because I am fighting against jet lag with sugar and willpower because coffee does not work on me.
yay ! thanks for waiting on me ! can’t wait to get back into the swing of things !
Overreact | Tarsem
Jealousy in June Prompts: 1. Glaring down anyone who looks at their partner 19. Forbidden or Secret relationship 20. “Did that really make you jealous?”
Word count: 1.3k
Pairing: Tarsem x reader
Description: The clan may not know about your relationship, but that does not mean that Tarsem is okay with people wanting what is his.
Content Warnings: kissing, secret relationship, angry Tarsem
Author's note: Based on this request.
Tarsem’s fingernails dug into the skin of his palm as he clenched his fists tighter and tighter. He sat at the hunting celebration with his elbows propped on his knees and his brow furrowed low.
Dancers twirled around him, but he barely noticed. He was too focused on you sitting across the circle. You threw your head back in laughter while a weaver named Kalam whispered to you and gazed at you like you were made of starlight.
“Olo'eyktan, are you alright?” a fellow warrior asked from beside him.
Tarsem looked over at his friend whose face was half veiled in shadow from the fires that flickered throughout camp. “I am fine,” he insisted, clenching his jaw as if that was the reset button to clear his clouded, jealous thoughts.
Tarsem really did try not to be envious of your suitors, they would never have you like he had you, but it was difficult not to. It seemed everyday came with a man vying for your attention. It took everything in him not to take action, but his patience was running dangerously low recently.
When you had laid out the terms of your agreement to him, he had thought it would be no problem to keep your relationship a secret, but that was months ago now. That was before the sight of you made his chest ache and that was before he found himself falling in love more and more each day. Now it seemed impossible to wipe the lovesick look off of his face every time he saw you.
His eyes strayed back to you and the weaver despite his better judgement and found that the skxawng (idiot) had his hand laid on your arm in a gentle, familiar gesture. The sight had his blood boiling even though you quickly moved away to clasp a hand over your mouth and stifle a giggle at whatever he was saying.
Tarsem was up and moving before he even realized, marching through the dancers and singers undulating an upbeat, full-bodied melody. Your eyes flitted up to meet his as he drew closer. People’s eyes followed him as they watched curiously to see where he could be going.
Your own eyes widened as he stopped in front of you and Kalam. “Olo’eyktan,” you greeted, looking up to the figure towering over you. You and Tarsem rarely spoke to one another when others were around, finding it easier to keep up the facade when you simply looked like formal acquaintances. This was a surprise.
His eyes shifted to the man beside you, his glare shooting daggers into his soul. “May I talk to you?” he asked you, even though did not tear his eyes away. Kalam shifted uncomfortably.
“We are in the middle of a celebration,” you argued, dumbfounded at what could be so important that he would interrupt your conversation and the ceremony. The celebration was in your honor after all, since you had made the killing blow to the largest talioang (sturmbeast) in years. The dancers were reenacting your maneuvers during the Great Hunt and singing songs thanking Eywa for her bounty. This was an event both you, as the guest of honor, and Tarsem, the Olo’eyktan, should be in attendance for.
His gaze snapped back to you. “I need to speak with you privately,” he reiterated. “It is urgent council business.” His golden eyes were illuminated by the fires, despite the dark night, and the glow of them sent a shiver up your spine.
You nodded slowly, standing up and sending an apologetic look over your shoulder to Kalam. Kalam shrugged, even more confused than you. Your attention was ripped back to Tarsem when he cupped your elbow and guided you away from the crowd.
“Where are we going?” you asked your secret love. He led you deeper into the forest until you could barely hear the singing any longer.
“Away,” he replied. The forest pulsed in that living, familiar way it had since far before your birth. You heard water trickling softly in a nearby stream and that is when Tarsem slowed to a halt.
You turned around to face him. “What is- omph!” You swallowed the rest of your words as Tarsem cornered you against the bark of a tree and his lips met yours in a bold frenzy.
All annoyance at missing the festival dissipated at the feel of his hands circling your waist, one traveling to your back to pull you closer to him. Your own arms wound around his neck and held him to you, melting into his familiar embrace.
He pulled away after a few moments and breathily said, “He put his hand on you.”
“Mhm,” you hummed. You went to dive back into your kiss, intending to ignore him, but he huffed a humorless laugh and moved his head away from you. “Not until you tell me why. What did he say that was so funny? Why did he look at you in the way that only I should?”
You eased back on your heels, taking in Tarsem’s irritated face and realizing that he was unequivocally angry. You tilted your head to the side as the reason for his tantrum dawned on you. “Did that really make you jealous? He barely touched me,” you grinned, but Tarsem was not amused.
“I should have given him lashings. If I did not love you so much and did not choose to respect your wishes, I would have taught him not to dare touch what is mine,” Tarsem swore and you shook your head.
“You are being dramatic. He was telling me about how his mate had to fill in for another dancer at the last minute for the ceremony and knew only half of the movements. They kept messing up and he was pointing out how they were trying not to laugh through the songs. It was all in good fun,” you explained and Tarsem visibly relaxed.
As his shoulders slumped, his eyes also widened when he realized how much he had presumed just from one interaction. “So… he is already mated?” Tarsem asked.
You smiled knowingly. “Very happily,” you promised.
He nodded. “Then I suppose I may have overreacted,” he admitted.
“I suppose so.”
He sighed, messing with the beads around your neck, before he said, “I am sorry, ma yawnetu (my beloved). My anger got away from me. I could not bear to see you with another, even when I understand why you do not wish to let our relationship be known. I am jealous of even the breeze for it gets to touch your skin in plain sight. It is terribly difficult for me to see you with others when it should be me instead,” he apologized, and your heart melted at his sincerity.
“I know, Tarsem, and I am sorry for it, but I have no wish to be the mate of an Olo’eyktan. That is not Eywa’s will for me. You can love me in the meantime, but the day will come when you will need to find a strong Tsahìk who can help you,” you repeated what you had already said a hundred times. “And that person cannot be me.”
“Please, you do not have to be Tsahìk, you could-”
You cut him off, not wanting him to get your hopes up just to have them all crash down on you. “Please, Tarsem. Let me just enjoy what we have now. We will face the future another time, just let me live in this feeling tonight,” you pleaded and Tarsem inhaled a stuttering breath.
He could never deny you, that was how he found himself in this agreement in the first place. “Fine, it will be as you say,” he relented and you smiled.
“Thank you, my love. Now kiss me and do not stop this time.” You both smiled as he pulled you closer and his lips met yours once again.
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Tarsem: @hawksilpollo @itskekeelise @xilaze @belanekra @whos-nin1
the way he just went for it and smooched reader ??? oh my lawd !!
all that for Kalam to be mated 🥲 they were both so confused !
this line was absolutely amazing — i genuinely sat there like “woah”
“I am jealous of even the breeze for it gets to touch your skin in plain sight.”
i wasn’t expecting to be sad for them by the end 🥲 what do you MEAN THEY CANT BE TOGETHER FOREVER ??
another amazing fic June !! ♥️✨ the perfect amount of jealousy, fluff and angst !!
Birthright | Mangkwan Jake Sully
This is a part of my Mangkwan! Jake AU! You can read their origin story here.
Jealousy in June Prompts: 7. “Touch her and you die”
Word count: 1.7k
Pairing: Ash Na'vi!Jake Sully x wife!reader
Description: A visitor comes to ask the Omatikaya for an alliance, but Jake Sully would never honor an agreement with the fool that dares to touch what is his.
Content Warnings: AU where the Omatikaya turn into Ash Na'vi as well. Talk of killing, Neteyam and Lo'ak are little heathens, reader is pregnant with Tuk, probably OOC Wukula bc I've never played the game before.
Author's note: Based on this request by @yukiyuribot!
“Touch her and you die,” a gravelly voice came from behind Wukula.
Your lips rolled up into an excited smile at the sound of your mate. The Mangkwan warrior’s brow jumped, his hand freezing in the air over the spot where you had just suggested he feel for a kick from your unborn child. He cocked his head to the side, looking at you in the realization he had been set up for the sake of your own twisted fantasy.
“I promise a slow death, Mangkwan,” Jake growled low and quiet.
Wukula dragged his eyes from you and looked over his shoulder, gaze alight with mischief, even though he had been played. It looked like he enjoyed the game just like you did. “I meant no offense, Olo’eyktan.” Wukula lowered his hand to his side and stepped back from you.
You watched in fascination as the fire cast a red glow over one side of Jake’s face, covering the opposite side in darkness. “Don’t touch what isn’t yours.”
Wukula nodded, his hands held out to his sides in a sort of surrender as he backed away even more. “Of course not, Jake Suli. My apologies.” You circled around Wukula, letting your hips sway as you slid past Jake to stand on his other side.
“What would you do if someone touched your Tsahik while she was swollen with child?” Jake asked, the tilt to his head a clear indicator of his agitation. You peered over his shoulder, letting your hands travel over the tense expanse of his back in silent support and delighting in the way he reacted to your touch.
“I would cut them from ear to ear,” Wukula answered honestly.
“Then imagine what I would do to you if you had touched her,” Jake threatened.
“Far worse from what I’m told,” Wukula smiled wickedly. “That is why Varang sent me to you. She wishes to forge a friendship against our mutual enemies.”
Jake’s eyebrows lowered. “Which enemies? The uniting bands to the south? The Eastern tribes that you pissed off with all your raiding? Or our true enemy, the skypeople that still ravage our lands and take from our ground? The Omatikaya have only one true enemy,” Jake asked critically, head tilted as he evaluated Wukula’s answer.
Wukula narrowed his eyes, “The Mangkwan have no quarrels with the skypeople, it is the other Na’vi clans that pose our problems.”
Jake shook his head, “There will come a day when the skypeople will come for you too,” he promised.
“Even so, that day has not yet come and our enemies rally against us now. They are angry that we do not worship their goddess. They oppress us for living the way of life that our tribes share,” Wukula corrected, his tone betraying his discontentment at having to argue and being questioned. Something told you that he was not used to that.
“No, they oppress you because you burn their villages and rape their women. Just as you have no quarrel with the skypeople, we have no quarrel with the other Na’vi clans. We have no mutual enemies,” Jake corrected.
Wukula was not discouraged by this, he pressed on. “Then that just means that one day, you will need us, and we will need you, Olo’eyktan. A friend to call on in times of trouble.”
“And you planned to start that friendship by touching my mate?” Jake sneered, shifting his weight to one side and slightly bending his knee in a casual show of dominance that made your own knees weak. He was not worried, he did not fear Wukula or the Mangkwan. He would burn the world for you. It was undoubtable. That was power.
“I did not mean-” Wukula was cut off by Jake scoffing.
A set of two footsteps outside the tent made both you and Jake’s ears perk up at the sound. You exchanged a look and Jake grinned and called, “Neteyam, Lo’ak!” From just outside, two young boys of the ages of 8 and 7 came through the tent opening. Your heart softened at seeing their little faces, looking so much like both of their parents, and you smiled encouragingly when they glanced over at you.
“Come ’ere, boys,” Jake commanded and both of your sons diligently came to stand in front of him. Black, gray, and red paint slathered over nearly every inch of their skin. It protected them from the harsh sun, but it also created a fearsome image, especially with the added accessories made from small animal bones, feathers, and even a piercing in Neteyam's case. He had been begging for one for months so he could match you and Jake, and Jake had finally relented to one on each of his ear lobes.
Wukula’s brow raised and he looked confused.
Jake brought his hands to each of their shoulders, “This man is from the Mangkwan. What do we know of them?”
Neteyam eyed Wukula analytically. “They are raiders that attack villages and the wind traders. They take resources and leave little else,” your oldest answered.
“Good, ‘teyam. Lo’ak, what else?” you asked from Jake’s side.
Your youngest looked up to you. “They enslave or kill Na’vi. They are led by a Tsahik called Varang.”
“Exactly, but do they attack tawtutes (humans)?” Jake asked.
“No, only Na’vi,” Lo’ak answered. “We are the only ones to defend Pandora against the demons.”
“This man thinks the Omatikaya should come to the aid of the Mangkwan whenever they need us to. What does that tell you?” Jake pushed more. Wukula’s jaw was clenched so tightly, that it looked as if his teeth might break.
“If they rely on others to come save them, then they are weak,” Lo’ak answered.
“And what do we do with the weak?” Jake asked, eyes sparkling as he looked at Wukula, evidently amused.
“We kill them. A diseased limb must be cut off the body to prevent it from polluting the rest. The weakness of one is the weakness of all,” Neteyam surmised.
“Very good,” Jake nodded, pleased with his well trained boys. Neteyam and Lo’ak both stood taller at their father’s praise, grinning smugly to themselves.
“Can I please help you kill him, Sempul (father)? I did all my chores and I have been very good this week,” Neteyam begged and Wukula reared his head back in shock at the question,
“I can help too!” Lo’ak added, perking up at the prospect. “Please, Sempul!”
Jake patted their shoulders, “I’m afraid not, boys. This man needs to go back to his village so he can tell his Tsahik our answer.”
“Aw,” both of your sons sighed.
“I know you are disappointed,” you cooed, opening your arms wide for them to step into. “Come here,” you beckoned. Jake’s hands slid off of their shoulders as they diligently followed instructions and came to join you.
“See, even a child knows what a foolish errand this was, Wukula,” Jake said.
Wukula growled, hand flying to the blade at his side. Jake jolted forward, quickly putting you and the boys directly behind him. Your hand held your pregnant belly protectively as Neteyam let out a hiss at the threat to his family. You were proud of its clarity of sound. He would make a fearsome warrior someday.
“You have insulted the Mangkwan one too many times, Jake Suli,” Wukula said through his teeth.
“And do you know why I can do that?” Jake asked, a mischievous glint to his eye that made you feel safe, even as Lo’ak and Neteyam watched wide eyed behind you. “Because before you could even draw your blade, my mate would call in the thirty some warriors around camp right now. You wouldn't be able to kill me in the time it takes for them to come. In fact, I could probably kill you in that time. You’re good, Wukula, you’re very good, but you don't have two young children and a pregnant wife to protect, and that makes me much more dangerous than you.”
Wukula snarled, knowing Jake was right. “Go back to your Tsahik and tell her what was said today. Don’t look for help here, Mangkwan,” Jake demanded, stepping away from the door and directly shielding you and the boys from Wukula.
From around Jake’s broad back, you could see Wukula grimace and say, “This is not over, Jake Suli.” Jake’s posture grew rigid before Wukula stalked through the tent flaps and outside to his ikran.
Jake's shoulders relax slightly now that his opponent was gone from his sight. “You did so good, baby. So brave,” you muttered, snaking your hands up his arms and resting your chin on his shoulder.
Jake glanced back at you. “He didn't hurt you?” he asked.
“He did not lay a finger on me, ma Jake. I am yours only,” you assured him.
Jake nodded, “Good. I’m yours, baby.”
“Sempul! You reminded him who was Olo’eyktan!” Lo’ak grinned, interrupting you and Jake, but you could never be mad at your baby boy for long.
Jake smiled back, kneeling down to be at eye level with his boys.
“Yeah! He was so scared of us!” Neteyam agreed.
“You boys did a good job protecting your mama today,” Jake complimented them.
“Thanks dad! Just like you taught me,” Neteyam smiled, letting out another little hiss.
Jake laughed softly at the cute sound. “Mighty Neteyam, warrior prince of the Omatikaya. Wukula stands no chance against you,” he said.
Neteyam smiled smugly as Lo’ak asked, “What about me?”
“Not you, you’re too little!” Neteyam rejected.
“Lo’ak may be younger than you, but that makes him no less terrifying,” you corrected.
“That’s right. Let’s see your hiss, little man,” Jake encouraged his youngest.
“Okay,” Lo’ak let out a long and flat hiss that sounded only slightly weaker than Neteyam’s, but even cuter.
“Very scary. The fearsome Lo’ak, Son of Toruk Makto and slayer of demons,” Jake came up with a title of Lo’ak’s very own and he beamed at the name.
“I will kill many demons too,” Neteyam added, not happy with the shifting of attention.
“Together, you two will kill them all. They will shake at hearing your names,” you nodded with a wide smile. “It’s what you were born to do.”
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i really like how you set the omatikaya ash people apart from the Mangkwan and explored why they would be at odds !! it makes so much sense ! your brain !! they may be crazy but they’ve got a point … the Mangkwan betrayed their own kind !
this line !! it made me ehehehehe
“…and that makes me much more dangerous than you.”
the boys’ cuteness transcends good and evil ☺️ one thing about Jake is that he’s a family man AND I LOVE TO SEE IT !
i love this AU ! each installation makes it even more and more compelling and fascinating !!
𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.
— pairing: gn!metkayina tsakarem!reader x younger!tonowari te tsika'u arvak'itan
written for the 'jealousy in june' event by THE namesake herself, @junebugonjupiter!
prompt no. XXXI: 'remember, you are talking to MY mate.'
synopsis: being the tsahìk in training is not easy, not in the slightest. having to spend countless days learning about different salves, doing prayer rituals at the tree of souls, and dealing with brash injured warriors. but your mate takes care to emphasize that, even when hurt, they will never speak to you with lust or with anger.
word count: 8.3k
content warnings: slightly suggestive if you squint, confrontation, angst, tonowari is NOT playing around when it comes to his mate, both are in their mid 20s and newly mated, tonowari is still eyktanay under his father, graphic descriptions of bodily injuries, most likely inaccurate descriptions of bodily injuries, there's one scene of someone having to fight despite life threatening injuries, but you don't have to read it for the whole point of the story, i love tonowari at any LEGAL age😍, lawd i love angry and jealous tonowari🤤
a/n: all of yall better get on your knees and THANK june for asking me to write this, cause i was honestly not gonna participate in her event since i feel like i can't write anything halfway decent lately but yeah i'll do anything for my queen june and cause it's my man✌️ MY MAN MY MAN THAT'S MY MANNNNNNNNN!! don't have any song inspo but i was listening to peggy by ceechyna so...not fitting but i just needed a song
got this done in 7 hours over the span of 3 days. alexander hamilton fears ME.
Tsakarem training had been anything but easy for you.
Of course, no one expected it to be easy. But the current Tsahìk, Soän, made everything look so effortless, when in truth, you were ready to fall asleep as soon as you crossed the woven walkways to your marui [home]. She worked you all day and well into Eclipse, sending you home often in the middle of the night. Those were the days where she let you rest past the morning sun, but it only meant grueling training was simply delayed farther into the day. You tried your best to keep up the mask of a future Tsahìk, pushing through the fatigue, and sometimes even the pain of each day.
But one Na'vi could see right through each attempt.
Each morning, when you woke, it was Tonowari who wrapped a broad arm around your midsection, bringing you into his chest just a little longer. It was he who whispered his pride and affections before the two of you had to split for your respective duties, savoring the closeness and privacy not afforded often to the Eyktanay [Olo'eyktan-in-waiting] and Tsakarem [Tsahìk-in-waiting] of the Metkayina. It was he who helped massage your tense shoulders after letting you bandage his cuts and scrapes from training out past the reefs. Tonowari was always by your side when he could be, showering you with soft kisses and gentle embraces whether in public or in the privacy of your own home, letting the entire clan know of his love and devotion towards you.
And that, that was what you needed to rely on for this particular morning.
Tsahìk Soän was traveling with her husband, the Olo'eyktan, which left Tonowari in charge of the village as one of his Eyktanay trials, being their son and next in line to ascend to the title. Your mate had to leave early that morning, pressing a kiss to your temple, which woke you earlier than he knew you wanted, but for him, you wouldn't mind in the slightest. Sitting up in the woven swayvini [a hammock meant for more than one Na'vi] that the two of you shared, you watched Tonowari move around the marui, donning his bright orange shawl that you made for him, then moving to the weapons mantle to gather his spear and knife before his ears turned in the direction of your movement. His face became just slightly less apprehensive, and more relaxed with a hint of worry when he saw you were awake, staring silently with pleading eyes while he tried to get ready quietly.
"Do you have to go now, ma yawnetu [my love]? Must you leave before the sun comes?"
Setting his spear back in its place, just beside yours on the weapons mantle, Tonowari moves towards you, resting a warm, calloused hand on your cheek, savoring the way you automatically curl into his touch, comfortable in the very home, the very hammock he built just for you, but always upset to see him go.
"I must go, tìywan [beloved]. I have to meet with the leiokoaktu [elders] so they can assist me with leading the village for the next fortnight. But I will be at your call whenever you wish to see me."
For the first time that day, and what would happen to be the last for a long while, you offered your mate a soft smile, your chest warm with the knowledge of his true dedication to you and your bond. Ever since the mating ceremonies, and even well before then, the two of you have been inseparable. First as friends, then as something more, that bond only growing stronger as the two of you were poised to lead the Metkayina clan for as long as you were able. There was a strong connection, something deeper than no one to could tear apart, not his parents, not even yours. It was the kind of love that you would fight for, the kind you would protect, the kind you would die for.
So having to part to early, to relinquish time that you cherished, it left a sour feeling that cast doubts in the back of your mind. Was this how life would be after the two of you rose to power? Would leading the clan be the very thing that drove the two of you apart? No, you wouldn't dwell on that. You knew the love, the bond that you and Tonowari shared was stronger than anything, even stronger than Eywa could say. Still, it was not easy.
Especially with the day you had ahead of you.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
Tsahìk Soän may have been gone for the next few days, but that did not mean you were let off of training.
In fact, it meant you were to step into the role of Tsahìk for a few days, taking care of the village and using the gift Eywa bestowed upon you to guide your People. And to provide healing, alongside some of the younger apprentices that you helped train. After you were able to see Tonowari off, you quickly dressed, putting on your Tsakarem skirt that denoted your rank, alongside the shell that would mark your title when you became Tsahìk. Quickly grabbing your knife, and tying your herb pouches on your waist, letting them sit right next to your waytelem [songcord], you moved to leave your marui, tying the flaps partially closed to signify its vacancy, before moving down the woven walkways between Awa'atlu. Many of the Na'vi you passed greeted you, but the air felt different. They held you in a higher regard, many even offering smiles, proud to see the warrior and the healer that you have grown into over your life. When you made it to the healers' tents, there were a man and a woman outside waiting for you, two Na'vi you recognized as apprentices underneath you and Tsahìk Söan.
The young woman, Tsunal, had a fearful, but hesitant look on her face, clearly having witnessed something she did not plan to see this early in the morning. Beside her, the young man, Rimun, managed to break the tense silence just before you could speak up and asked what happened.
"Tsahìk, the Olo'eyktan's guard went past the seawall terraces, fending off akula, but a large pod of them attacked the group. All forty of them have injuries that require your expertise." The two apprentices bowed slightly as you took in the situation before you, your mind not expecting to be addressed by the title that you had not yet achieved. It made you feel warm all across your body, this kind of elevation starting to get to your head, but you shook the thoughts out of your mind as you nodded, acknowledging the work that your apprentices had already managed to handle.
"I thank the both of you for coming out and meeting me. I will handle the most severe of the injuries, while I allow the two of you to lead the rest of the healers in taking care of those who sustained no more than flesh wounds until I have stabilized those who need me most. Tsunal, where did you send the tsamsiyu [warrior(s)] with the worst injuries? Take me to them. Rimun, gather the healers and begin preparing salves while attending to the healers in the eastern tents."
The two healers nodded, Tsunal leading you to the western tents where cries of pain could be heard before you even saw the maruis that part of the Olo'eyktan's guard were being held in. Rimun quickly went inside the largest of the eastern tents, gathering healers to form a plan. Internally, you sighed heavily, knowing that it was going to be an impossibly long day. Most of the tsamsiyu who fought alongside the Olo'eyktan were already egotistical, believing they were the best of the best, 'Eywa's favorites' or so they said. They were arrogant, all of the Na'vi who were chosen loving nothing more than to fight one another, some even fighting for the hand of each other's mates. It was disgusting, repulsive, but you knew all forty of the tsamsiyu by name, most growing up alongside you, some even childhood friends of yours. And as acting Tsahìk, you needed to maintain niceties before one of them got so angry that they bled out on the marui floor.
"The worst of them all, some of us healers were able to put in the back of the tent, near the opening to allow for the sea breeze to come in. Four of the ten tsamsiyu have caught fevers from their bodies trying to heal, and the others are growing cold with each passing minute. We had to start a fire and keep cloths full of warm and cool water to try and satiate everyone's need. It is...dire, to say the least, Tsahìk."
This news caught your ear. The Olo'eyktan's guard only departed just after Eclipse last night, and to hear there were four whose condition worsened so bad, to the point of fever was very concerning. You knew that the chill the other six were experiencing could be remedied easier than bringing down a fever, and coupled with the critical injuries, you needed to work quickly and precisely before you had a preventable death on your hands.
"Who among the four with fevers are faring the worst?"
"There are two. Netuni, she sustained large, deep gashes along her legs and midsection, with some bruising on her internal organs from the examination I was able to perform before she coughed blood on my shawl. I asked two healers to keep her still, and there is tea brewing for her on the fire we made. And Ruma, he had an akula bite into his left shoulder.¹ Some of the flesh is missing, and there are currently three healers trying to stop the bleeding, but no herbs and no pastes we have tried are working. I fear he may die of blood loss if you do not help us."
Following Tsunal into the healers' marui, the first thing that hit your senses was the smell in the room. It was warm, but the whipping of the sea breeze sent a rush of air around you that carried with it the familiar salt of the ocean. Then the underlying scent of a deep iron settled deep across your chest, the blood of all ten warriors and their injuries too prominent to ignore. The potent aroma of herbs, some steeping in a tea by the txeptseng [hearth], others being ground into pastes and salves before application onto the bodies of each tsamsiyu was enough to make even the most experienced healers nauseous. But you maintained your composure, moving quickly to the opened side of the tent to assist the two warriors that needed your attention most.
"Look at you, playing Tsahìk for the day." The tired, but still supercilious voice of Netuni hit your ears just as you were able to take in the state of her beaten and battered body. Tattoos overlapping the heavy bruises she had on her stomach, alongside the large scars that had thick paste smothered across each and wrapped in large pieces of soft tanleng [tree bark]. Tsunal knelt quietly, applying an ointment to the small cuts on Netuni's face, lips, and shoulders, but the warrior would not break eye contact with you, no matter what went on around the two of you.
"And I am the only Na'vi who can heal you. So I suggest you obey what I say." Taking in the sickly pallor that drowned out any color in Netuni's face, you brought the steeping bowl of tea off the fire, analyzing how Netuni would not stop perspiring even with the chill that ran down your spine at each gust of wind brought in from the open flaps she was laid by. Pouring a small cup for her to drink, you handed it to the woman not with grace, but with an urgency that even years of training could not stay hidden for long. As Netuni drank, you turned and began to prepare a thick tincture, reminiscent of koaktutral [medicinal flowers] but much more potent, and far more lethal if prepared incorrectly. Tsahìk Soän only taught you to prepare a medicine as precise as this, for it was only by a Tsakarem or a Tsahìk that this tincture would be as effective as possible. While you worked, the other healers managed to stabilize Ruma, his bleeding slowing with typical blood clotting pastes, his skin color slowly returning as he came to his senses. Slowly, but surely, he was doing better than Netuni, whose fever was still high, even with how irritating she was at the moment.
Your tail swayed slowly behind you, giving away your apprehension, as your hands worked faster than your mind could comprehend, having made the medicine hundreds of times. Unbeknownst to you, Netuni was enjoying the sight that she was afforded, the way you moved with an effortless grace, the tone of your muscles with each movement you made. From the necklaces you chose, to the silky waves of your hair that cascaded down your back, even tracing the beads that encircled your waist, her eyes would not leave your body. You looked simply tantalizing.
"You know, I think the role of Tsahìk, is something you wear well, sevin [pretty]." You finally turned around, seeing the pure lust that was in no way hidden as it danced across Netuni's eyes, bile seeping into your throat at the very thought of her trying to objectify you. Even more so while you had just mated with the love of your life, all of the ceremonies being something Netuni hadn't missed. She knew you were spoken for, that you were happily mated, but she was never one to be faithful. Two broken bonds that ended with her mates heartbroken, she was willing to fight for whatever pretty thing caught her eye next, commitment be damned.
"Keep those indecent thoughts to yourself, woman. I am spoken for. And my mate is much better than whatever remnants of a relationship you could give me." Not even needing to look back, you were pleased at how the warrior grew angered by your sharp words, even her breathing changing giving her emotion away. With no care for her injuries, Netuni sat up quickly, her arm catching your bicep, squeezing hard enough to bruise. She wanted you to know who she thought held power. In spite of her body screaming in protest, her internal injuries surely worsened.
The sudden movement made you drop your Tsakarem knife, almost spilling the poisonous part of the plant you were preparing to steep in the tincture for the warriors bruised organs. You tried to pull away, Tsunal even stepping between the two of you, but Netuni held a vice-like grip on your arm, not daring to let go, even as footsteps slowly began to approach the healers' tent the three of you were currently in.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
There was one thing Tonowari wanted nothing more than to do after an arduous day of leading the People.
He wanted to see you. Nothing would make his day more than getting to hold you in his arms, taking in the scent of sea salt and fresh fruit that always followed you, a scent he memorized from the first time he asked to court you. The elders stretched him thin, making him assess the problematic hunt that occurred within the Olo'eyktan's guard, visiting with the neighboring Ta'unui clan, even overseeing the mid-morning and afternoon catches, though he was only a half-decent fisher. It felt as if he had to be everywhere all at once today, so there was one more stop Tonowari wanted to make before asking around to see where you were.
In his heart, he knew that as you were to take up the mantle of Tsahìk beside him, that the village of Awa'atlu was well under your reign as equal leaders. Your expertise, the dedication to your practice that had been honed over the many years of training, would aid you well, he had faith in that. But he had more faith in you, your steady presence guiding the People even better than he thought he could.
Traversing the woven walkways amongst the village, the Eyktanay stopped by the southern gardens, speaking to some of the women who know his mother, the Tsahìk, well. They doted on his strength, shared their pride, all of their superficial compliments showing they meant well and wished for prosperity as the transition of power began soon. They somehow were able to read his mind, as a large bouquet of paysyul [water lilies] were placed in his arms, 'a gift for our next Tsahìk,' the women soon ushering him away so they could continue harvesting herbs for preservation.
Tonowari walked slow, savoring the sea breeze along the shore, enjoying the feeling of the sand beneath his feet. His mind wandered, one hand held onto his spear as the other was tight around the flowers meant for you, thinking about how your day had gone. Had you gone straight to the healers' tents to lead the efforts with the injured tsamsiyu? The elders told him only surface details, not going father than to alert him that all forty were injured, and some were worse than others. He knew you would stay level-headed if that was what you had to deal with all day, putting any of them who stepped out of life back in their place. Still, he worried about you, having to deals with skxawngs [idiots] like that. They were all brash, too worried about the spoils that came with war, and trying to recreate that glory, to care about the feelings of those in their path.
So if he had to, Tonowari would put them back in line before they disrespected his love.
As he approached the healers' maruis, there was the faint sound of yelling, then hissing, his mind automatically registering the sound of your voice. But it wasn't normal, not like he expected it to be. It was loud, upset, defensive. He assumed the worst, that one of his own people dared to threaten you, his Tsahìk? Holding tight onto the flowers still in his arms, he went through each healing marui, stopping when Tsunal stepped outside, her hands stained from the pigment of ointments and teas being made from sunrise well past High Noon, with efforts most likely having to continue into the night.
"Tsunal! Where is the Tsahìk? I heard a scream and—"
The young healer sighed, her body weary and exhausted from the day, but trying to maintain composure to not startle Tonowari any further than he already seemed to be.
"Olo'eyktan, Tsahìk is inside trying to deal with Netuni. I was told to step outside so that 'the situation can be handled.' Do you need help with those flowers?"
Tonowari immediately shakes his head, handing Tsunal his spear to free up his hands, brushing past the young woman and into the tent behind her, as she looked on not with surprise, but rather with a knowing gaze. Moving back to the other healers' tents, she steps inside another, leaving the spear she was handed propped against the interior wall of the marui Tonowari ran in.
Inside said marui, the Eyktanay was met with a sight that nearly brought him to his knees, the bouquet of paysyul almost falling out of his arms as he set it down to deal with the issue at hand. Your arm was still held by Netuni, your pleas and desperate attempts to pull away only met with more force, the woman not relenting as she bared her fangs, daring you to keep moving, like you were her prey. Your face was contorted not in shock, but in true fear, the bruises the tsamsiyu's hands already left marked your tattooed skin, covering the ceremonial markings that you received with pride.
"Look at you! You pathetic little kali'weya [bitch], you cannot even make a simple medicine to heal me! You are not fit to be my Tsahìk—"
"Netuni!"
The room fell silent, Netuni becoming completely still, suddenly aware of the pain that flared beneath her skin. She tried and failed to lie back down without assistance, feigning innocence as the one man who could and would kill her stepped farther inside the marui, immediately rushing to your side, Tonowari holding you in his arms as he assessed the injury on your bicep. After careful reassurance that you were mostly alright, his gaze landed sharply onto Netuni, staying low as he moved towards her, like a predator ready to strike. The fact that she dare touch you, and have the audacity to leave you marked, that awoke a deep-seated anger that was extremely rare in the typically level-headed Eyktanay.
"Remember, woman, you are talking to my mate. And do not ever question the role of your Tsahìk, before I tear your head from your spine and use you as bait for my next hunt."
You openly welcomed the comfort of your mate's arms, away from her. But your mind, your morals, they were torn between obeying your training, healing at all costs, putting the People before yourself at times, and staying away. You know Netuni would not touch you with Tonowari here beside you, but she risked internal bleeding with all of the movement she kept doing. She needed the tincture, and she needed it now. But your mate wouldn't let you out of the embrace of his hold, even turning you away from the tsamsiyu, blocking your view of her as the other healers in the marui slowly, apprehensively, began to check on Netuni. They realized, once you were not moving back near her, that they needed to take up the responsibilities that were thrown out of the window when the woman attacked you.
"Tonowari, I need to finish the tincture—"
"No. She has hurt you, she had laid hands on what is mine. Netuni does not get the privilege of your expertise if she does not understand respect."
Without another word, Tonowari gathered the flowers he left by the entrance, as well as his spear that Tsunal left on the side, before ushering you out, giving Netuni one last glare before the two of you began walking away from the healers' tents and towards your own home.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
Eclipse settled slowly across Ewya'eveng [Pandora].
And through reports from your apprentices, it seemed all ten critically injured tsamsiyu were in stable condition. Including Netuni.
The healers managed to prepare enough of an herbal tea that brought her fever down, her organs slowly returning to normal after repeated examinations and four of them even tying her down to the woven floor. The far side of the village returned to peace, but inside your own marui, it was a different story.
Tonowari had long abandoned repairing a few nets to bring back a sense of cool to your home. But the tension was incredibly thick, his anger seething, seeping into every crack of the home that the two fo you built together. He was pacing along the length of the marui, while you kindled a fire in your home's txeptseng, preparing a meal for the two of you to share in private. The rest of the clan was gathered at the communal meal, but it was not appropriate for their acting leaders to appear in this state, one ready to snap and the other injured by hands that were not at all gentle, but ready to harm.
"Ma yawnetu, please, come and sit. It has been a long day."
"I cannot rest knowing that I left you to be subject to that. Netuni hurt you. She preyed upon your nature, your care about every Na'vi, regardless of their past. She does not deserve any more treatment after she laid hands on my mate."
Setting your knife down, you walk over to Tonowari, making him stop in his tracks, his tail swinging behind him, slow and controlled, another tell of his anger. Your hands rested on his shoulder, giving them a gentle squeeze to remind your mate of your presence, that you are here now. Alive. Guiding Tonowari to sit beside the fire, you kneel down in front of him, noticing how he would not look up to meet your eyes. But he kept you close, one of your hands kept safe underneath his own, as if he did not want to let you go, not wanting to risk someone else laying hands on his beloved.
"Is this the price we must pay to lead together? You must contend with people fighting over you, and I must worry about having my mate stolen from me?"
"Tonowari. I am here, and I am safe. That is what matters most, my love. Not Netuni. Not what she did. I am yours, and yours alone."
Setting down your knife, you shifted to face him fully, cradling your mate's face in your hands, seeing the exhaustion, the defeat in his eyes. It made your heart feel heavy, knowing that he felt as if he failed you, that he believed the clan did not know you were his.
"When I spoke those vows during our mating ceremony, I promised my life to you, just as you promised yours to me. When we made tsaheylu [the neural connection] at the Great Tree, I made it only with you. No one, and I mean none of those warriors, none of those Na'vi outside of these walls, will ever know me like you do."
"I am not a prize to be won, I am not a trophy to be paraded around by some arrogant bastard who knows nothing about me past my looks. I am your mate, I am your Tsahìk. You are the one my soul belongs to. Do not forget that."
Tonowari wrapped his arms around your waist, drawing you close, as a small smile graced his features, a sight you thought had been lost to the morning. He laid his head on your shoulder, pressing a kiss to your neck as he took in the scent that he'd been missing all morning, savoring the touch of what was only his. Sensing your head turning, he looked up, following your line of sight to the paysyul that had been set down at the front of your marui, his mind completely forgetting about them in his anger about the afternoon.
"The women in the herb gardens gave them to me. I thought of you as soon as they put them in my arms."
You press a kiss to his temple, standing to retrieve the pink and white flowers to set them in a small wooden bowl of water, their petals bright, welcoming, much unlike the weight of duty that the two of you were learning was heavy on its bearer. But those responsibilities you left at the front of you home, relishing in the quiet comfort of one another, eating in peace, the solace between you and Tonowari strong. Until he breaks the silence, his voice hesitant, testing the waters of the atmosphere the two of you spent hours kindling.
"I still do not think Netuni should be able to bruise my mate without punishment."
While in the middle of cleaning up the leaves you used as placemats, your ears turned quickly to the sound of Tonowari speaking, your brows furrowing at his statement. You thought the two of you left that in the past. Netuni laid her hands on you. But it was no longer your matter, only the Great Mother's. But your mate would not let that suffice.
Besides, what was the harm in exacting some revenge?
Netuni was bold enough to reach for you while she was injured, her mind not bothering to think of the consequences.
That familiar, looming pressure of authority settled across your home. You turned to look at your mate; his face was masked with dancing shadows from the fire. Tonowari was plotting. You had only seen his become this rigid, this stoic once before. When some of the Olo'eyktan's guard, all of them being his and your peers, disobeyed his direct order.
Hell had been raised upon the tsamsiyu from the one man they never expected.
Yet it seems that one warrior had not learned from her first encounter with the wrath of your mate.
So she would know once more. And she would never forget.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
When dawn bathed the village in warm purples, oranges, and reds, the rest of the Metkayina clan began their day.
But for you, and for Tonowari, the day began far earlier, before Eclipse even ended. The two of you were a force to be reckoned with, like a storm beginning to arrive on the shores of Awa'atlu.
Though only one Na'vi would have to deal with its consequences.
The two of you dressed quickly, Tonowari wearing his shawl that marked his status, marked his power, as you wore your Tsahìk garments, your presence just as strong as your mate's, formidable, able to bend the knee and bow the head of all you passed. The two of you planned late in the night, that Netuni would not get away with her offense. If she wanted to fight, if she wanted to stake claim to you, then a fight she will have.
Injured or not.
As soon as the two of you stepped out of the marui, hand in hand, all of the Metkayina nearby froze, not using to seeing the Eyktanay and Tsakarem so furious, so determined to deliver something or someone to their fate. Hunters, healers, gatherers, all who stood in your way parted like the sea, both in awe and in fear of the wrath of their next leaders.
Tonowari moved faster than a storm-turned current out past the reefs; his hand holding yours in a firm grip, determined to show his people just who your mate was. He wasted no time leading you to the healers' marui where Netuni was staying, Tsunal immediately falling silent as she watched the two of you approached, her heart hammering with fear. The young healer heard everything that transpired yesterday, and she simply hoped that she would not be subjected to the misguided anger of a man who was not at all quick to become mad.
"Olo'eyktan, Tsahìk. What brings the both of you—?"
"Tsunal, is Netuni awake?" You didn't waste any time, your guarded rage being the only somewhat calm presence, contrasting with Tonowari's own temper. If your plan were to to work smoothly, then it could not start with unbridled emotions. Things needed to be controlled, to be saved for what was to come. Your mate stayed silent to your right, his head hung low, deep in thought. His free hand held a vice grip on his spear, which you secretly feared he was going to break over the back of the woman whose fate was sat in his hands, in his actions.
"She is inside, awake. But...what are you planning to do, Olo'eyktan?"
Tonowari nodded, offering quick thanks to the young woman before pulling you behind him to step into the tent, only stopping just before the flaps fully closed, to answer Tsunal. "I am planning to give that woman what she really wants."
The smell of herbs, blood and salt hit your nose, making you stagger, the weight of you falling back immediately alerting Tonowari. His hands flew to your waist, offering a steady presence while you recover from the sudden pungency in the air, something that you hadn't gotten used to for the day. It somehow smelled even worse than yesterday, but you were not here to heal. Not yet.
You would heal after everything was said and done. Though, enough had been said.
It was time for for something to get done.
Your steps were light, cautious as you wove around the other nine Na'vi still laid on the soft woven floors of the marui, all being attended to by different healers, most having improved. The source of that bloodied smell came from the scattered bowls laid beside Netuni, her skin even paler than it was a full day ago. She could barely open her eyes, a thin sheen of sweat reflecting the sunlight that came in from the open flaps that let in sea breeze, something that was supposed to alleviate the weight of her fever. It seems that Eywa has already begun exacting her punishment.
But now, it was your turn.
Shifting your armband, the one that matched with Tonowari, as it sat atop your bruise, the three-fingered hand print turning a deep, angry purple as it healed. Every object that it brushed over reminding you of that moment, of when you felt so out of control, so left at the mercy of another. When Netuni made you, a warrior, a healer, made you feel as small as a child as she hurt you.
And right now, she would know how it felt to be made inferior.
"Netuni. Sit up." You voice echoed throughout the woven tent, healers and even the injured turning their ears and heads to face you. The command in your tone was sharp, not able to be ignored, and some of the healers beside you cowered in fear, moving to get out of your way. It was the first time most had seen their Tsakarem angry, but with how fast they moved out of the way, they knew that this was not going to be the last time Netuni has to face the consequences of her actions.
The woman's gaze lazily drifted to meet yours, her face remaining still, rigid. Her eyes were glassy, not fully conscious of what was going on. Netuni's lips were tinted red with blood, having coughed up what seemed to be three bowls' worth overnight, the bruising on her skin blooming, prominent, as she sat up, fighting with each movement made. Those purple-blue contusions, reminiscent of the clouds, were marks of her condition worsening, likely strained by all the movement from the day before. It serves her right. She should have known better than to test you. And while at the mercy of your healing, your knowledge.
"Hear my words. You have harmed your next Tsahìk, and that is an offense punishable by death. But," you let out a low chuckle, glancing at your mate, the burning fire beneath his sea-blue irises enough to strike fear in even the coldest of hearts.
"It seems that you might be able to meet the Great Mother without my mate have to try hard."
Netuni spat out another mouthful of blood, arrogance flaring in her demeanor as she glared at you, the daring nature of her spirit clashing with the war that was your incredibly resilient resolve.
"What the hell are you even—?"
"Since you see me as some pretty little prize, you will fight my mate for my hand. If he wins, you are to submit and give up your proud ways, and embrace humility. If you win, then, I will make the bond with you. You will stand and fight today, at High Noon. You have just a few moments longer to wait. Do what you must to stop my mate from killing you. But know that I will not stop him."
With that, you walked out of the healers' tent, Tonowari not even bothering to look back at the sickly pallor Netuni's face took on, her face frozen in a state of utter disbelief. A pit formed in her stomach as she replayed the moment when she grabbed you over and over, her mind struggling to grasp the fact that she would not win this fight.
But it was too late.
Her fate was sealed.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
High Noon was bright, Tsawke [Alpha Centauri A] beaming down on the sandy shores of western Awa'atlu, the closest to the healers' maruis.
You were sat on a small moss-covered rock, your eyes tracking the water like a sailor pointed north, not wavering, focused on only one thing. The rigidity with which you sat was eerie, a guardian sat upon their pedestal, watching Tonowari pace against the sand, his ears pinned to his head. His tail thrashed behind him, a silent testament to the anger that radiated off his tattooed back in waves, while the bright orange olo'eyktan shawl that marked his status kept swaying in the wind.
"She is late. A coward when it truly matters." Your mate's voice cut through the tension, sharp, a controlled fury that left an odd feeling sitting low in your stomach. He was right, Netuni is late, and she was known for boasting her ability to spar. She would never miss an opportunity that gave her the chance to display her strength, injured or not.
But the real reason you wanted her to fight, was for her to finally be put in her place.
Netuni had been like this ever since the two of you completed your iknimaya [coming-of-age rites] together. It was in her nature, to fight, to win. Her father and mother were on the Olo'eyktan's guard, the two of them being part of the forty warriors who managed to take down twelve akula in one hunt. It was Eywa's plan for her to devote her strength to this craft, but it came with a price to everyone around her. Many times, she would fight with other warriors in training, proudly declaring that one day, she would have your hand, that the two of you would stand together as the strongest couple in Awa'atlu. And for a short while, you believed her.
Until Tonowari came, and enamored you in a way you never believed your heart would desire. So if Netuni really wanted you, then she would fight. You knew those juvenile feelings hadn't dissapated for her like they did for you.
Therefore, you would let her come.
"She will come, ma tsamsiyu. The woman is still injured. But I know her pride, and the adrenaline of a fight will lure her in."
As soon as the words left your lips, Netuni came limping around the corner, the bright yellow shawl of Tsunal, currently helping her, the first indication that she was near. Her hand held a death grip on her spear, using it as a crutch, a lifeline, to stand up straight. Netuni's breathing was uneven, her exhales sharper and sounding more painful than her inhalation. The brusing across her ribs and stomach had worsened from just hours ago, angry red welts popping up along their edges, creating a jagged outline right where her organs had been critically injured.³
Despite her injuries, Netuni wasted no time, immediately raising her spear and lunging for Tonowari's chest, her blade nearly missing his shoulder as he knelt to avoid her. You stood from you place along the rocks, running to pull Tsunal by the arm, to get her out of the way of danger. Her face was paler than the sea, her body frozen in horror at how close she had come to meeting Eywa. Guiding her away from the two warriors, you had her sit beside you, while your eyes met your mate's, a silent conversation passing from yours to his, those oceans that held so much conveying everything you needed to know.
Tonowari needed to end this now.
Without truly killing Netuni, anyway.
But was it truly the right thing to do?
The whole reason this...clearly unfair fight came to fruition began last night, as a blanket of dark quiet enveloped Awa'atlu. The only fire kept burning was the one that lit your marui, you and Tonowari having gone quiet after dinner. Emotions were high, as you nursed your bruise and your mate laid his head on your lap, a blank stare across his expression. It was suffocating, the feeling being lusted over like you were. You knew it was bound to happen, that it was unavoidable. It being from Netuni, even less surprising. But you still just couldn't understand why she would go as far as trying to keep you away from the man whose heart you already captured.
"I stand by what I said earlier."
"You truly want to make Netuni pay for what she has done."
Tonowari sighed from where he lay, his muscular arms coming to sit folded atop his chest. He needed to make that woman pay. The only issue being what method did she deserve? Netuni was wrong, there was no doubt. She put her hands on his mate, on the love of his life, his lover that he was meant to protect. But she put her life on the line, she went out and fought against akula. The most dangerous creatures across all of Pandora's seas. She was willing to go to the extreme to fight for the People. It left Tonowari feeling conflicted.
"I do. But she..." He sighed, hesitant in admitting what he really wanted to say to you. He wondered what you would say. She wronged you, it was meant to be your call. But with his say in the matter, Netuni deserved only a punishment she could handle now. There would not be time for this issue to simmer into a a deadly poison that could be turned either way, ruining both your reputation and hers with just one wrong word.
"She does not deserve anything too harsh. She is already close enough to death as it is."
There it was.
You expected something...docile to come form your mate. As strong and as dangerous as he was, he was never quick to anger. And he despised giving harsh reprimand in a situation as ambiguous as this. So you would front the effort of giving that woman what she deserved. You pressed the medicine hard into the imprinted palm on your bicep, wincing at the sting of the ointment as you placed it on, but your mind did not waver from its goal.
"Then let me choose what she will face."
Everything had culminated to this. From the hours the two of you spent poring over a plan of action, to your approach, to convincing Netuni out here, possibly to fight to her death. Was this really the price she should pay?
That was when it dawned on you.
None of this was about honor, nor was it about pride.
It was about you.
You simply wanted to see how far your mate was willing to go for you. That secret voice of doubt and disbelief was whispering to you that if Tonowari really loved you, if he really would protect you, like he always promised, then he would fight an injured woman.
He would kill for you.
Kill the one woman who claimed to show just as much devotion to you as he did.
You wanted to prove to yourself that you made the right choice.
Running up to step between Netuni, who was on bended knee in the sand, fighting for every gasp of air she took, and Tonowari, you glance between the two of them, your hands creating enough space that they could not charge toward one another without harming you first.
"Tonowari, wait. Just...wait." You crouched down to inspect the fallen woman, Tsunal close behind with a small jar of salve to administer with bandages. Netuni could barely lift her head, she looked close to the point of falling into a coma. Guilt seeped deep into your conscience, where the rightful blame laid. As much of an ass she could be, no one should be fighting while battling death itself.
Your mate had come closer, silently relieved he didn't have to spar with a warrior who stood no chance in a state like Netuni's. As he looked over at your face, written with disgust, seemingly at yourself. Your eyes were lined with sorrow, finally showing regret for escalating a small, albeit disrespectful, moment, to a fight between life and death.
Immediately, your hands flew to grasp Tonowari's forearms, tears falling freely down your cheeks as you realize the gravity of what your decision led to. Your mind was a torrent of emotions, trying to pull yourself back together and make sense of everything, but you were lucky to have a mate who knew you, sometimes even better than you did yourself.
"Ma yawnetu, mawey [be calm]. Mawey—"
"I wanted you to kill her! Eywa, what is wrong with me? I just—I just wanted to see if you truly would kill for me, and I know that Netuni would because she has always wanted me...but I wanted to truly see if I made the right decision and—"
At your confession, Tonowari stepped back, his gait staggered as he realized the weight of what you chose last night. Why you wanted him to fight for your hand. He had known about you and Netuni, how there was something that she felt for you, but not that it was reciprocated. He had no clue that you thought about the possibilities with...with her. Of all warriors.
But, you chose him.
How ironic, considering your words just one night ago.
Despite your doubts, despite what your subconscious said, you loved him. And you loved him wholly. Without boundaries. From the smallest of things, adjusting how you slept so he could sleep cooler at night, to parading with him around the village after your mating ceremony, relishing in being bonded to him, you loved him more than even you could say.
He moved closer to you, cradling your head in his hands as his thumbs wiped away the last of your tears, the earliest of which left a streak on your face. A marker of your true remorse, that you recognized the error of your ways. Tonowari offered you a soft smile, giving you a quick, but weighted kiss, savoring the taste of sweet fruit and sea salt that he longed to be near for as long as he lived.
"I can only speak for myself, but despite what you believe, you made the right decision, my flower. I have loved you from the moment that I laid eyes on you, and when I began to court you, I knew in my heart that you loved me just as hard as I did."
"I understand that you were conflicted. I understand doubting a decision, hoping that the path you chose was the right one. But know that I would go to the ends of this moon to do whatever you asked of me. And you know this. As for Netuni..." His voice trailed off, the two of you looked over as Tsunal began to escort her back to the healers' maruis, her gaze sharp, deadly, though still sickly. You could see it in her stance; the way her shoulders are slumped, clutching her spear and Tsunal's extended arm like a lifeline. She was not in it for you, not wanting to do it for your hand. Of course not. Netuni just wanted a fight, just wanted to try and beat Tonowari for bragging rights.
A wet laugh escapes your lips, watching the healer and the broken warrior make their way back to the center of Awa'atlu, leaving you and Tonowari with some semblance of solace. You lean into his side, letting a large arm wrap around your shoulders, enveloping you in the scent of salt, musk, and herbs, bringing you comfort.
"I am sorry that I ever doubted your love. I am truly sorry. I should have done better by you, and you deserve better than what I have subjected you to."
"It is—"
"No," you interjected. You knew Tonowari would be far too forgiving. It was endearing, but at times, misplaced. He deserved to know that this was more than just some fleeting doubt in the back of your head. "It is not alright. Our bond is strong, it is sacred. I know better than to judge that, than to doubt that you love me just as much as I love you. I cannot tell you to never forget how strong our bond is, then forget it myself. Netuni does not and will not deserve me like you do. I am yours. So I ask for your forgiveness."
Feigning deep thought, it didn't take long for your mate to offer you a smile, extending a hand to help you up from where you were knelt on the sand. Tonowari helped pull you up, squeezing your hand tight as the two of you began walking back through Awa'atlu, many of the People nodding and offering greetings as their next leaders passed.
"I do forgive you. I always will, kalin [lit. sweet]. It is natural to have doubts, especially with all that you went through with Netuni. But I will love you, and I will kill for you if she tries that again. Though I hope it is a fair fight."
The laughter that bubbles up in your chest is hearty, warm and carefree. For the first time all day, you finally felt at peace despite everything that happened. It was truly refreshing. There was no longer a thickness in your throat, no longer a weight on your chest. No more warriors to deal with, no more added stress of being Tsahìk resting on your shoulders. You would handle that as it came tomorrow, with a clearer spirit.
As Tonowari guided you back to your marui, you embrace the closeness of the moment, grateful to the Gracious Mother that she gave you a caring, and forgiving mate.
Though, next time, you will not put yourself in a situation that requires Eywa to test his patience.
Love was difficult. It had ups and downs, situations that were unprecedented. But as fierce as the desire might be, you will not let petty arguments, doubts, and wrongful bloodlust test your bond.
Because you belonged to Tonowari.
Just as much as he belonged to you.
𓇼𓂃 𓈒𓏸 ˚｡⋆
thank you for reading! let me know if you liked it! comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3
— taglist: @smuttyjane @lejardinfleur @xilaze @scarhein @tigerpetals @corabrown19 @pookiecookie2 @yukichan67 @llovekats @swimmingnightcolor @/junebugonjupiter @homosexual-sheep
1 — could you tell i wanted an injury like neteyam got in ATWOW...? i needed something like seriously life threatening and pulled this out my bootyhole
2 — i had this thought like if the normal leaders are gone, whoever steps up in their place are called by those titles, so when people are talking you see them refer to reader as tsahìk and tonowari as olo'eyktan. but during narration, i refer to them by what they actually are for the purpose of the timeline we're following okay? it just makes sense to me idk yall
3 — literally all i could think of here was that one fight sound that goes 'CRITICAL HIT!' not sure what game it's from. but also 'katana wins, flawless victory' from either mortal kombat or street fighter. i just thought it was so funny to ME😭😭😭
i'm sorry husband...
this actual BULLSHIT feels like a weight off my chest...it turned out so messy like i'm irritated now...let me get to writing for the rest of my requests before i get mad
DONE BADDIES and that is my sole contribution to this event since i'm actually convinced my writing is SHIT
i think everyone should totally do the jealousy in june event cause their writing is better than mine anyway
taglist | masterlist | ask box | rules for requests
keke — GURL THIS WAS INTENSE !!!!
starting from the top:
I LOVE THE MENTAL IMAGE OF READER AND TONOWARI TENDING TO EACH OTHER AFTER LONG AND CHALLENGING DAYS 🥹 that is the sweetest !!
keke, this was so detailed and immersive (as always) 🫢 i felt like i was in the thick of it with all the healers !!
spoilers below !
reader’s little reassuring speech to Tonowari at the end was so beautiful
and i LOVED this line
“…a small smile graced his features, a sight you thought had been lost to the morning.”
i was at the edge of my seat !! to see if tonowari would go through with the fight 😳 but i love how his nature shines through it all ! slow to anger, quick to forgive, level headed and fair.
Birthright | Mangkwan Jake Sully
This is a part of my Mangkwan! Jake AU! You can read their origin story here.
Jealousy in June Prompts: 7. “Touch her and you die”
Word count: 1.7k
Pairing: Ash Na'vi!Jake Sully x wife!reader
Description: A visitor comes to ask the Omatikaya for an alliance, but Jake Sully would never honor an agreement with the fool that dares to touch what is his.
Content Warnings: AU where the Omatikaya turn into Ash Na'vi as well. Talk of killing, Neteyam and Lo'ak are little heathens, reader is pregnant with Tuk, probably OOC Wukula bc I've never played the game before.
Author's note: Based on this request by @yukiyuribot!
“Touch her and you die,” a gravelly voice came from behind Wukula.
Your lips rolled up into an excited smile at the sound of your mate. The Mangkwan warrior’s brow jumped, his hand freezing in the air over the spot where you had just suggested he feel for a kick from your unborn child. He cocked his head to the side, looking at you in the realization he had been set up for the sake of your own twisted fantasy.
“I promise a slow death, Mangkwan,” Jake growled low and quiet.
Wukula dragged his eyes from you and looked over his shoulder, gaze alight with mischief, even though he had been played. It looked like he enjoyed the game just like you did. “I meant no offense, Olo’eyktan.” Wukula lowered his hand to his side and stepped back from you.
You watched in fascination as the fire cast a red glow over one side of Jake’s face, covering the opposite side in darkness. “Don’t touch what isn’t yours.”
Wukula nodded, his hands held out to his sides in a sort of surrender as he backed away even more. “Of course not, Jake Suli. My apologies.” You circled around Wukula, letting your hips sway as you slid past Jake to stand on his other side.
“What would you do if someone touched your Tsahik while she was swollen with child?” Jake asked, the tilt to his head a clear indicator of his agitation. You peered over his shoulder, letting your hands travel over the tense expanse of his back in silent support and delighting in the way he reacted to your touch.
“I would cut them from ear to ear,” Wukula answered honestly.
“Then imagine what I would do to you if you had touched her,” Jake threatened.
“Far worse from what I’m told,” Wukula smiled wickedly. “That is why Varang sent me to you. She wishes to forge a friendship against our mutual enemies.”
Jake’s eyebrows lowered. “Which enemies? The uniting bands to the south? The Eastern tribes that you pissed off with all your raiding? Or our true enemy, the skypeople that still ravage our lands and take from our ground? The Omatikaya have only one true enemy,” Jake asked critically, head tilted as he evaluated Wukula’s answer.
Wukula narrowed his eyes, “The Mangkwan have no quarrels with the skypeople, it is the other Na’vi clans that pose our problems.”
Jake shook his head, “There will come a day when the skypeople will come for you too,” he promised.
“Even so, that day has not yet come and our enemies rally against us now. They are angry that we do not worship their goddess. They oppress us for living the way of life that our tribes share,” Wukula corrected, his tone betraying his discontentment at having to argue and being questioned. Something told you that he was not used to that.
“No, they oppress you because you burn their villages and rape their women. Just as you have no quarrel with the skypeople, we have no quarrel with the other Na’vi clans. We have no mutual enemies,” Jake corrected.
Wukula was not discouraged by this, he pressed on. “Then that just means that one day, you will need us, and we will need you, Olo’eyktan. A friend to call on in times of trouble.”
“And you planned to start that friendship by touching my mate?” Jake sneered, shifting his weight to one side and slightly bending his knee in a casual show of dominance that made your own knees weak. He was not worried, he did not fear Wukula or the Mangkwan. He would burn the world for you. It was undoubtable. That was power.
“I did not mean-” Wukula was cut off by Jake scoffing.
A set of two footsteps outside the tent made both you and Jake’s ears perk up at the sound. You exchanged a look and Jake grinned and called, “Neteyam, Lo’ak!” From just outside, two young boys of the ages of 8 and 7 came through the tent opening. Your heart softened at seeing their little faces, looking so much like both of their parents, and you smiled encouragingly when they glanced over at you.
“Come ’ere, boys,” Jake commanded and both of your sons diligently came to stand in front of him. Black, gray, and red paint slathered over nearly every inch of their skin. It protected them from the harsh sun, but it also created a fearsome image, especially with the added accessories made from small animal bones, feathers, and even a piercing in Neteyam's case. He had been begging for one for months so he could match you and Jake, and Jake had finally relented to one on each of his ear lobes.
Wukula’s brow raised and he looked confused.
Jake brought his hands to each of their shoulders, “This man is from the Mangkwan. What do we know of them?”
Neteyam eyed Wukula analytically. “They are raiders that attack villages and the wind traders. They take resources and leave little else,” your oldest answered.
“Good, ‘teyam. Lo’ak, what else?” you asked from Jake’s side.
Your youngest looked up to you. “They enslave or kill Na’vi. They are led by a Tsahik called Varang.”
“Exactly, but do they attack tawtutes (humans)?” Jake asked.
“No, only Na’vi,” Lo’ak answered. “We are the only ones to defend Pandora against the demons.”
“This man thinks the Omatikaya should come to the aid of the Mangkwan whenever they need us to. What does that tell you?” Jake pushed more. Wukula’s jaw was clenched so tightly, that it looked as if his teeth might break.
“If they rely on others to come save them, then they are weak,” Lo’ak answered.
“And what do we do with the weak?” Jake asked, eyes sparkling as he looked at Wukula, evidently amused.
“We kill them. A diseased limb must be cut off the body to prevent it from polluting the rest. The weakness of one is the weakness of all,” Neteyam surmised.
“Very good,” Jake nodded, pleased with his well trained boys. Neteyam and Lo’ak both stood taller at their father’s praise, grinning smugly to themselves.
“Can I please help you kill him, Sempul (father)? I did all my chores and I have been very good this week,” Neteyam begged and Wukula reared his head back in shock at the question,
“I can help too!” Lo’ak added, perking up at the prospect. “Please, Sempul!”
Jake patted their shoulders, “I’m afraid not, boys. This man needs to go back to his village so he can tell his Tsahik our answer.”
“Aw,” both of your sons sighed.
“I know you are disappointed,” you cooed, opening your arms wide for them to step into. “Come here,” you beckoned. Jake’s hands slid off of their shoulders as they diligently followed instructions and came to join you.
“See, even a child knows what a foolish errand this was, Wukula,” Jake said.
Wukula growled, hand flying to the blade at his side. Jake jolted forward, quickly putting you and the boys directly behind him. Your hand held your pregnant belly protectively as Neteyam let out a hiss at the threat to his family. You were proud of its clarity of sound. He would make a fearsome warrior someday.
“You have insulted the Mangkwan one too many times, Jake Suli,” Wukula said through his teeth.
“And do you know why I can do that?” Jake asked, a mischievous glint to his eye that made you feel safe, even as Lo’ak and Neteyam watched wide eyed behind you. “Because before you could even draw your blade, my mate would call in the thirty some warriors around camp right now. You wouldn't be able to kill me in the time it takes for them to come. In fact, I could probably kill you in that time. You’re good, Wukula, you’re very good, but you don't have two young children and a pregnant wife to protect, and that makes me much more dangerous than you.”
Wukula snarled, knowing Jake was right. “Go back to your Tsahik and tell her what was said today. Don’t look for help here, Mangkwan,” Jake demanded, stepping away from the door and directly shielding you and the boys from Wukula.
From around Jake’s broad back, you could see Wukula grimace and say, “This is not over, Jake Suli.” Jake’s posture grew rigid before Wukula stalked through the tent flaps and outside to his ikran.
Jake's shoulders relax slightly now that his opponent was gone from his sight. “You did so good, baby. So brave,” you muttered, snaking your hands up his arms and resting your chin on his shoulder.
Jake glanced back at you. “He didn't hurt you?” he asked.
“He did not lay a finger on me, ma Jake. I am yours only,” you assured him.
Jake nodded, “Good. I’m yours, baby.”
“Sempul! You reminded him who was Olo’eyktan!” Lo’ak grinned, interrupting you and Jake, but you could never be mad at your baby boy for long.
Jake smiled back, kneeling down to be at eye level with his boys.
“Yeah! He was so scared of us!” Neteyam agreed.
“You boys did a good job protecting your mama today,” Jake complimented them.
“Thanks dad! Just like you taught me,” Neteyam smiled, letting out another little hiss.
Jake laughed softly at the cute sound. “Mighty Neteyam, warrior prince of the Omatikaya. Wukula stands no chance against you,” he said.
Neteyam smiled smugly as Lo’ak asked, “What about me?”
“Not you, you’re too little!” Neteyam rejected.
“Lo’ak may be younger than you, but that makes him no less terrifying,” you corrected.
“That’s right. Let’s see your hiss, little man,” Jake encouraged his youngest.
“Okay,” Lo’ak let out a long and flat hiss that sounded only slightly weaker than Neteyam’s, but even cuter.
“Very scary. The fearsome Lo’ak, Son of Toruk Makto and slayer of demons,” Jake came up with a title of Lo’ak’s very own and he beamed at the name.
“I will kill many demons too,” Neteyam added, not happy with the shifting of attention.
“Together, you two will kill them all. They will shake at hearing your names,” you nodded with a wide smile. “It’s what you were born to do.”
Taglist:
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i really like how you set the omatikaya ash people apart from the Mangkwan and explored why they would be at odds !! it makes so much sense ! your brain !! they may be crazy but they’ve got a point … the Mangkwan betrayed their own kind !
this line !! it made me ehehehehe
“…and that makes me much more dangerous than you.”
the boys’ cuteness transcends good and evil ☺️ one thing about Jake is that he’s a family man AND I LOVE TO SEE IT !
i love this AU ! each installation makes it even more and more compelling and fascinating !!
Die for You | Tsyeyk Suli
Part 2.5 in my Role Reversal AU!
Jealousy in June prompts: 1. Glaring down anyone who looks at their partner 4. Fighting over reader/their honor 12. Reader has no clue someone likes them 17. Mine
Word count: 2.9k
Pairing: Na'vi!Jake Sully x fem!reader
Description: Role Reversal AU - Tsyeyk is willing to put everything on the line when another declares their interest in his mate.
Content Warnings: Reader is Toruk Makto, fighting, takes place a few months after the Battle of Ayram Alusing, Leytan has a scene in part 1, so he has had beef with Tsyeyk for a minute.
Author's note: Based on this request from @vaao2445! Thank you Finnie for giving me lots of ideas for this, especially the end! She's my idea fairy for real!!!
Total silence from Tsyeyk at dinner was something so peculiar that you thought for a moment that you must have done something to make him mad. You glanced concerned at your mate, only to see his attention entirely elsewhere and glaring dead on at something across the fire.
“Are you okay?” you asked your husband, growing more concerned when he merely nodded, but showed no other form of response. He kept his gaze locked on the same subject.
You visually searched for what could have possibly drawn his attention. There were hundreds of Na’vi gathered for the evening meal, but none of them were looking in your direction. You were about to turn back to Tsyeyk and ask him flat out what was going on, when you spotted what it was. Leytan.
Leytan was a brash warrior who had delighted in poking fun at you when you first arrived and still enjoyed making comments about your body and fighting skills when Tsyeyk wasn't around. He was skilled and he was rude, but most importantly, he liked paying attention to you. Neytiri said it was just his way of gaining your notice, but you didn't think it was anything deeper than jealousy and competition.
There were several Na’vi who still kept their distance from you because of your past as a human. Distrust was still something you were battling here and you couldn't blame them. But, distrust wasn't the problem with Leytan, not anymore. You occasionally caught him watching you while you trained and the look in his eyes usually made your nerves rattle.
Tsyeyk subtly leaned in towards you. “Do you see?” he asked quietly.
“I see,” you affirmed.
“What do you think of him?” Tsyeyk asked, nodding in the offender's direction.
You sighed, gathering your thoughts. “Not much. He’s annoying, sometimes he’s rude to me, but I don't think he’s dangerous,” you surmised.
Tsyeyk’s head cocked to the side, even as his eyes stayed on Leytan. “Why did you not tell me?”
You hadn't asked Tsyeyk his opinion, opting to not burden him with silly things, not when you could handle yourself just fine. The two had never gotten along and had already gotten into several disagreements since you had come here, one of them even over you. You wouldn’t sow discord if you didn't need to.
But Leytan wasn't staring at Tsyeyk tonight. He was looking straight at you. The slight smirk of his upturned mouth told you he was not glaring at all, he was admiring. Your spine grew rigid, not appreciating the way your skin crawled at the realization.
“I can handle a few comments here and there. It’s not a big deal,” you replied.
“I feel he is about to make it a big deal,” Tsyeyk grimaced. “I do not like the way he looks at you.” He wasn't the only one.
Leytan stood suddenly, causing you and Tsyeyk’s ears to both perk up and point in his direction. The movement caught Neytiri’s notice as well and she glanced up from your other side.
Leytan approached the Olo’eyktan’s council, not deterred by being surrounded by Tsyeyk’s closest friends and family. As he walked, people glanced up, curious at why he would be heading in the opposite direction from the food or drink.
Tsyseyk stood as Leytan got close enough to throw a stone at. “Olo’eyktan,” Leytan announced, making the area quiet down and gaining the attention from the rest of the Omatikaya gathered there. The customary Na’vi gesture of ‘I see you,” was noticeably missing from his greeting.
“Leytan,” Tsyeyk replied, warily watching as the too-confident warrior crossed his arms over his chest.
“It has been many moons since the skypeople were pushed back and defeated. In that time, I have watched you rebuild and seen our strength grow again from your choices,” Leytan started, but you were cautious of his flattery, and so was Tsyeyk.
Tsyeyk stood rigidly straight, emanating power and authority. “We have all worked hard to rebuild,” he corrected, and Leytan did not disagree.
“Yes, but none so much as your mate,” he smiled, gesturing to where you sat. From your vantage point, you could easily see Tsyeyk’s fist ball up. “I have watched her closely, it is known, ” Leytan admitted, and you felt your stomach roll in revulsion.
“I hope not too closely. I would have to take at least one eye for that offence,” Tsyeyk responded, his voice flat and deep. It reminded you of a rock’s surface, rough and hard.
“Close enough,” Leytan said, “You are a good leader, but you can not love her as I would if she were mine.”
You stilled, eyes wide and unblinking at the absolute gall of this man. You had no idea before today that he was even intent on you. “Leytan, I have no interest in you. I am happily mated already,” you clarified, but Leytan only shrugged.
“Things change. I could treat you better than he does. You would come to learn that,” he responded, sounding sure of himself.
Around the room, young Na’vi snickered at the challenge, many watching with wide eyes that drank in the rare drama that wasn't over food or difference in opinion. The older Na’vi simply sighed at the headstrong warriors who did stupid things for a lover’s attention.
Tsyeyk glared down at Leytan, his breaths becoming short and shallow. “She is not yours. She will never be yours,” he ground out of clenched teeth.
Leytan only continued, undeterred by the Olo’eykatan’s anger. “What a shame that she is not. Her beauty is wasted on one so ugly as yourself. And she is Toruk Makto, that cannot be forgotten. She has many skilled and unique qualities.” Leytan’s eyes roved over you and your lip curled in disgust.
Tsyeyk lifted his brow and grinned sardonically. “I am ugly in comparison to her, that I cannot argue with, but yet it was me she chose. I am the one who attends to her happiness, and you could not make her happy.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “You are jealous, Leytan, that is clear. It is not a good look on you.”
Leytan looked up at Tsyeyk under his brow. You could see the anger on his face and in the tension of his shoulders. Still, his next words shocked you.
“I challenge you, Tsyeyk to Suli Ta’may’itan, for both your title and your woman.”
The words sounded hollow to you, yet filled you with anger. Who did Leytan think he was, acting like you were something to be bargained for?
You started to stand up, ready to give him a piece of your mind, but Neytiri caught you. Her hands wrapped around your wrist and she tugged you back down. “Kehe (no)!” she urged. “He has to accept the challenge. It has been asked before the people. He would be a coward not to now,” she explained, nodding to where Tsyeyk gravely nodded.
“You have insulted my mate one too many times. Leytan, son of Ketun. I accept your challenge, if only to remind you of your place.”
You shook Neytiri off and stood again, taking a step closer to Tsyeyk until you were right by his side. “Tsyeyk, don't rush into anything over me. You could lose everything,” you pleaded in a hushed tone, your hand finding a place on his back. He had been selected for this position because of a lifetime of diligence and honing of his skills. He did not deserve to have it thrown away all because one overconfident warrior decided he liked the look of you.
Tsyeyk finally tore his eyes from Leytan and looked to you imploringly. The intensity in his eyes nearly made you step back. “Do you remember what I told you? You are mine. No one can take you from me, and damn anyone that tries,” he spoke low under his breath so only you could hear and then he was stepping forward. “Stay with Neytiri,” he ordered.
You winced at his stubbornness, but backed up to stand beside Neytiri who was also standing now.
Mo’at stepped forward from her place of importance near Tsyeyk’s abandoned seat. “A hand to hand challenge has been asked and accepted. First to draw blood is the winner, the victor will assume the role of Olo’eyktan,” she said somberly. “Do you both accept these conditions?”
Tsyeyk and Leytan both nodded. Your stomach squeezed at the thought of Tsyeyk losing. You knew he wouldn't. You had seen both men fight, and there was no question on who was more skilled, but there was always a chance of the underdog winning. Your own story was a testament to that.
“Then the challenge will commence,” she ordered. Your hands clenched into fists at your sides as both men handed their weapons off to others, Mo’at taking Tsyeyk’s knife.
Tsyeyk stepped closer to Leytan, and the two men began to slowly circle each other as people abandoned their dinner to move out of the way. A circle was created of cleared ground to be the fighting arena.
“I had hoped the first who challenged me for Olo’eyktan would be a formidable opponent. I will have to wait for the next challenger,” Tsyeyk shot across the way to Leytan who hissed at the insult.
Tsyeyk was quick to strike after that, attacking Leytan with a balled fist to his jaw, but Leytan was expecting it and dodged just in time. They went back and forth, Tsyeyk nailing Leytan’s side a couple times, and Leytan hitting Tsyeyk so hard on the face that a purple bruise was already blooming across his cheekbone.
You held your breath, wishing desperately either for Tsyeyk to finish this quickly or to be able to jump in and do it yourself. Neytiri gripped your wrist to comfort you, or possibly herself, as Leytan wiped his lips after Tsyeyk popped him in the mouth. His hand came back free of blood and you groaned in disappointment.
Leytan took a wary step back, but a dark chuckle escaped his lips. “Nga rä'ä rutxe ngeyä Unilnyu. Oe kame tsal sìn po sevin key (You do not please your dreamer. I see it on her pretty face).”
Tsyeyk did not stoop to exchanging petty words again, none would truly penetrate Leytan’s cocky armor anyway. Instead, he let out a hair raising hiss that was clean and sharp. If this was any other circumstance, you would have congratulated him on its precision and demanded he teach you to do yours the same way.
Leytan hissed back, a hollower sound in comparison, and Tsyeyk lunged at him. The two men fell to the ground as Leytan was unable to stave off the sheer force of the angry Olo’eyktan.
Tsyeyk brought his fists down on Leytan again and again, blood quickly blooming on his skin where Tsyeyk’s fists made contact.
“Tsal lu hasey (It is finished)!” Mo’at called, and you breathed a sigh of relief. You slipped out of Neytiri’s grasp and hurried to where you thought Tsyeyk would be getting off his opponent, but with horror, you realized Tsyeyk wasn't letting up.
“Tsyeyk,” you exclaimed, drawing closer and stopping just out of reach. “Stop it! It is over!” His ears twitched at the sound of your voice and he slowed to a stop, looking up at you over his shoulder as he heaved in heavy breaths.
Your twisted, hair-covered brow was low as Tsyeyk rose to his feet, stepping over Leytan’s groaning body. He wet his lips, a steely set to his gaze and turned back around to face the majority of the crowd.
“Anyone else?” He called out, shoulders set back in challenge and arms raised horizontally as if welcoming his next challenge.
You noticed most avoided eye contact with you and Tyseyk, while others glanced around the area for anyone brave enough to take on the Olo’eyktan. Many looked to Leytan flat on his back and said nothing.
After letting the silence sit for a moment, Tsyeyk nodded in satisfaction. “Toruk Makto is mine. None else may claim her. Any who try to come between us again, will suffer the safe fate.” Tsyeyk nodded down to Leytan.
“Tsahìk, attend him please,” Tsyeyk motioned to Mo’at and she hurried to Leytan’s side. You approached Tsyeyk as he watched the Tsahìk work.
“You okay?” you asked quietly, taking his hands in yours to observe his split knuckles that had started bleeding. Good thing Mo’at had called the fight when she did, or Tsyeyk would have also spilt his own blood.
“I am fine now that the skxawng (idiot) has been silenced,” Tsyeyk assured you. “Are you okay, Unilnyu?”
“I’m good, just surprised by all this,” you promised. Out of the corner of your eye, you watched as Neytiri and Mo’at checked on Leytan. With equal parts relief and anxiety, you saw him move his head from side to side in pain and heard the whimper he released.
Tsyeyk followed your line of sight and grimaced at the blood seeping onto the ground. “Take him out of my sight,” he ordered levelly to two warriors nearby and both hurried to assist the Tsahìk in transporting Leytan to the healer's hut.
“You need healing of your own,” you noticed, tracing a finger over the purple welts on his face where Leytan had hit him.
“I am fine,” he insisted, but you had noticed the way he flinched away from your touch for a split second.
You sighed at his stubbornness. “Come on,” you sighed, tugging him back to your shared home. “You could have killed him,” you muttered behind you once you had made it away from the crowds and your home was in sight.
“Would that have been such a tragedy?” he asked. The two of you began your short climb up to the woven floor.
“What happened to the balance of life and not wasting a life without necessity? You taught me that,” you pointed out as you pulled yourself up and walked to where Tsyeyk kept a collection of dried herbs and plants.
Tsyeyk shrugged as he came over the side. “If he had died today, that would have been Eywa’s plan, but he did not, so he can thank her for it in his prayers tonight.” Tsyeyk smirked at his humor, but paused as he thought, “Why are you so concerned over him?”
“That’s ridiculous, I’m not,” you scoffed as you found Yalna bark and pulled out materials.
Tsyeyk stood by the entrance and stared at you in horror as he mulled over a new possibility. “Do you return his interest?” he asked slowly.
Your head whipped around to look at him. “Tsyeyk! No! How could you think that?”
“I just fought a man over you just now and you are angry with me. What am I supposed to think?” he argued, a hand pointed at the floor to accentuate his point.
You sighed, “Sit down,” you gently ordered. Your husband pursed his lips, but heavily sat down on the floor near the small roasting pit in the center of your home.
You dropped the Yalna bark into a pestle and began grinding it into a paste as you went to sit beside him. “I do not even remotely like Leytan, I can hardly stand him,” you corrected him. “I’m only concerned because you put a lot on the line tonight, and only over me.”
Tsyeyk began shaking his head before you even finished speaking, all suspicions of your interest in Leytan forgotten. “No, do not speak as if you are not important and a leader in your own right. You are everything. You bonded with Toruk and fought alongside him in battle, you united the clans and drove the skypeople back. And besides all of that, you are my mate. I would go to the ends of existence for you. He should never have even spoken of you. He could not deserve the dirt Toruk Makto treads over,” Tsyeyk said, a glimmer of pride in his eyes as he recited your accomplishments.
You rolled your eyes, but couldn't contain your smile. “And Toruk Makto does not deserve you,” you added. “You are too good to me, Tsyeyk. I couldn't have done any of it without you.”
“That is untrue,” Tsyeyk couldn't stop his grin either, yet it faltered as he narrowed his eyes and asked earnestly, “But… you are happy here, with me?”
You nodded with a sincere smile, setting down the pestle and scooping the Yalna bark paste into your fingers. “I am happy wherever you are, yawnetu (loved one). You are my home. This forest is my home. I would fight for you just as you have me,” you assured him, spreading the mixture over his cheekbone.
Gooseflesh appeared on Tsyeyk’s arms as you applied the cool paste and Tsyeyk nodded. “I will always fight for you, Unilnyu,” he promised. “I would die for you.”
Your breath hitched as you hastily rose to your knees to connect your lips to his. You were too overcome by his admission to communicate your thoughts with only simple words.
Tsyeyk was ready for you, eagerly accepting your advance and pulling you closer. Your fingers accidentally prodded the sensitive mark on Tsyeyk’s face, making him tense and you could sense that he was in pain. You recoiled, quick to react and fix what you could, but Tsyeyk didn't let you retreat, only pulled you closer despite the discomfort and kept kissing you like his life depended on it.
He knew whatever physical pain he faced would be quickly soothed over by your love.
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i love when you make Jake/Tsyeyk do this 🤭
“Tsyeyk’s head cocked to the side…”
Leytan was doing TOO much … where were the people discouraging him from making an utter fool of himself… and on top of that, he’s straight up just RUDE !
i loved the detail that Tsyeyk’s hiss was more resonant and more powerful than Leytan’s 🙂↕️
not me realizing mid story that Tsyeyk wouldn’t have eyebrows …
THE STAKES WERE HIGH IN THIS ONE !! i loved how you built the tension during the fight, especially the moment when Leytan wiped his lip. i also appreciated that Tsyeyk didn’t immediately wipe the floor with him, even though that would’ve been iconic !
Tsyeyk being so proud of reader for bonding with Toruk, like Neytiri is for Jake, is just so sweet and really makes for a cute dynamic 🤭
Tsyeyk NEVER plays around when it comes to his woman !! i feel like the more you add to this AU, the more compelling and interesting it gets !!! AMAZING WORK AS ALWAYS JUNE ♥️ !!
my reaction bc Tsyeyk was fighting Leytan for me/reader 🤭
