A/n: I’ve never watched any of the Avatar movies or played Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, so this probably isn’t canon. Fair warning: this might be emotionally intense for anyone attached to the canon storyline or characters. Everything here is based on YouTube clips, wikis, and my wet dreams so please bear with me. What was meant to be a one-shot got a little out of hand.
@strbrrybrugmansia here you go!
synopsis: “We were close enough to remember, far enough to hurt." "I reached for him, but all I caught was air.”
Years have passed since the forest, since the children, since him. Survival has made you careful, precise, untouchable—but some memories refuse to stay buried. On Pandora, the past waits in the trees, and every choice you didn’t make comes rushing back.
content warning: Childhood trauma, violence and injury (non-graphic), psychological stress, themes of loss and grief, mild suggestive content, and elements of war and resistance, eventual fluff and smut, will be updated as story progresses!
word count: 2.08k
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
You remember the forest before you remember yourself.
Not your name—not the one they gave you later—but the sound of leaves brushing together in the wind. The hush of it, like the world breathing. The damp scent of soil after rain. The way light filtered through the canopy in fractured gold.
And the children.
The Sarentu children did not arrive all at once.
They came in pieces.
You remember that too.
The first time—though you did not know it was the first—there had been noise. Not the forest’s kind. Not birdsong or rustling branches, but something sharp, unnatural. A tearing sound that did not belong.
You had been small. Smaller than memory should allow. Curled into woven fibers and soft pelts, tucked safely into arms that were not your mother’s but held you like they were.
You remember lifting your head.
You remember seeing.
A clearing that did not exist before. Figures stepping out of something that hummed wrong against the world. Tall, blue, frightened.
Children.
They cried in a language you did not know then—but you understood the feeling. Loss, sudden and raw. Hands reaching back toward something that was no longer there.
You did not cry.
You watched.
You always watched.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
Days passed. Months. Something in between, time stretching and folding over itself. You learned their names, slowly, letting each syllable settle like soft stones in your mouth before it became part of you.
Ri’nela, with her quiet voice and softer eyes. She had been one of the first you dared to touch, your small human hand wrapping clumsily around her finger. She had stilled and then smiled in a way that felt like sunrise.
“Sister,” she called you, long before you understood the word.
Nor was different. Nor did not smile like that. Nor watched you the way you watched everything else. Careful. Measuring. His gaze almost clinical, like he was studying something precious that might shatter if handled incorrectly. Not Sarentu or Sky person. Something in between. But Nor never pushed you away. And that was its own kind of belonging.
And then there was Teylan.
You don’t remember when he started staying close. Only that one day, he was there, and he had always been there since.
At first, it was small gestures. A piece of fruit pressed into your hand when hunger clawed through the edges of your mind. A shadow falling across you when the sun pressed too harshly on your skin. The simple, steady presence at your side when the others ran ahead, their long legs carrying them through the forest.
“You’ll fall behind,” he had said once, not unkindly.
“I won’t,” you said, frowning, stubborn even then.
You did. Of course you did. Roots caught your feet. Branches scratched your skin. The forest that embraced the Sarentu hesitated around you, unsure what to do with something so fragile. “You don’t have to prove anything,” he said, pulling you up. “We know you’re here.”
We.
Not they. Not us.
We.
More children arrived, always in the same unsettling manner. One by one, they appeared suddenly, as if torn from somewhere else, from lives that had been stolen and left behind.
You grew older watching, learning the pattern and feeling it twist inside of you. They arrived afraid. They stayed afraid. Even in laughter, even in the fragile, bright bonds they built from loss, there was always the knowing. That this was not how it was supposed to be.
You felt it too—but differently. You had never been taken. You had just… been there. No memory of a sky. No memory of another home. Only the forest, the children, and the quiet, lingering sense that you did not fully belong to either world.
Sometimes, at night, you lay awake. Listening. To the forest. To the others’ breathing. To the silence where something else should have been.
“Do you remember before this?” you whispered once.
You weren’t sure who you were asking.
Ri’nela stirred, silent. Nor pretended stillness. Teylan shifted closer.
“I remember pieces,” he said after a long pause. “Not clearly.”
“Do you miss it?”
Another pause. Longer.
“I think… I miss what it was supposed to be.”
You didn’t fully understand. But you reached out anyway, your smaller hand finding his. He didn’t pull away. Never did.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
You learned early to move unseen. Small hands lifting extra rations when guards weren’t looking. Slipping through narrow corridors where Sarentu children were kept apart, broken, reshaped as if connection itself was dangerous.
You defied it anyway. A shared piece of food passed under a table. A whispered joke that made shoulders shake. A quiet game played beneath the dim, buzzing light of the facility.
Teylan would always find you first.
Always.
Even when they tried to move him elsewhere. Even when punishment came for his stubborn loyalty.
He would sit too close, shoulder pressed to yours, the only tether anchoring him in that place, and maybe, in a way, anchoring you too.
“You’ll get caught,” you’d whisper once, heart pounding as footsteps echoed somewhere too near.
He didn’t move. Not a muscle.
“Then we get caught,” he said simply, like it wasn’t a threat. Like it wasn’t something that could ruin him.
Like you were worth it.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
You grew up not in years, but in stolen moments.
In the way Ri’nela’s hand fit into yours. In the way Nor would silently place himself between you and anything he didn’t trust. In the way Teylan would look at you like you were something he refused to lose.
Even as Mercer’s shadow stretched longer, looming over everything you had learned to hold onto. Even as the world outside burned and shifted and demanded things from children who should have never known war.
You learned to read pain in silence. Learned to smile through it, even when it hurt too much. Learned how to exist in a place that was always trying to unmake you. Thankful that still, somehow, you had them. Him.
It changed so slowly that you hardly noticed at first. Words didn’t exist yet to describe it, and you didn’t need them.
It was in the way he said your name. Not like the others, not like it was casual or empty, but like it meant something. Like it belonged to you.
There was that night—the one etched into memory. The facility was quieter than usual, a stillness that felt wrong in its hollowness. You found him alone, back pressed against the cold wall, listening to something far away.
“You’re hiding,” you point out.
He glanced up. Gaze softening almost immediately.
“I was waiting.”
“For me?”
A small nod. You sat closer than necessary. Knee touching his. Neither of you moved.
“Do you ever think about leaving?”
“All the time.”
“And?”
“I think… if I leave, I don’t want to leave you.”
Something in your chest tightened, a slow squeeze that had nothing to do with fear.
“You won’t,” you whispered.
His hand found yours, deliberate, warm. Fingers threading through yours, pulses quick and uneven, matching each other without effort.
“You don’t understand,” he murmured. “I can’t leave you.”
Your breath hitched. The space between you shrank—slow, hesitant, like both of you were waiting for the other to pull back.
Neither of you did.
His forehead pressed lightly against yours.
And then—lips met. Tentative at first, searching. Warm, soft, urgent. Your hands slid up under his shirt, feeling the line of his shoulders, the heat of him. His fingers threaded into your hair, holding, guiding.
He pressed closer, teeth clashing with teeth. A sharp, playful bite at your lower lip makes you gasp, and heat spreads through you like fire. Your hands moved slightly higher, tracing the curve of his spine, feeling him shiver beneath your touch.
His lips left yours for a brief second, nipping along your jaw, trailing hot, teasing marks down your neck. You shivered, tilting closer instinctively. He groaned softly, low and restrained, and you caught the tremor against your own chest.
You laughed softly against him, tugging at the base of his tail playfully. He hissed in surprise before breaking out in a wide grin.
“Idiot,” he murmured into your shoulder, voice low and warm. “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” you whispered, tugging once more at the tail with a grin, “but I’m yours.”
And for a heartbeat, nothing else existed. Not Mercer. Not the war or the forest. Just him. Just you. Just this.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
It didn’t last.
Of course it didn’t.
Nothing ever did.
The day the resistance came, everything fell apart. The corridors of the facility became a battlefield. Gunfire cracked through the air in sharp, terrifying bursts. Alarms screamed. Children and guards alike shouted, the sound raw and ragged, echoing off walls that seemed to close in with every passing second.
You grabbed his arms, held on as if your life depended on it, because in that moment, it did. Your nails dug in. Heart hammering so loud it almost drowned out the world around you.
“Stay,” you said, voice cracking, desperate in a way you’d never let yourself be before. “Teylan, please—just stay.”
His hands were on your arms, firm, grounding—but not enough to stop what was already happening.
His hands pressed against yours, firm, grounding, offering strength—but it wasn’t enough to stop the tide that had already begun. “I can’t.”
“You can—”
“I can’t,” he repeated, sharper this time, like saying it any softer would break him.
“They’ll hurt you out there—”
“They’re hurting us here.”
Silence followed. Thick. Almost suffocating. The air seemed to press down on your chest. You could feel the moment slipping, feel him slipping.
“No,” you whispered, shaking your head violently, your breath coming in short, ragged gasps. “No, no, no—don’t do this, don’t—”
His forehead pressed against yours again. Just like before. Just like the night you had shared that quiet moment, the first time your names carried weight between you. But this time, there was no softness. No gentle brush of warmth. This time, it was desperate. “Come with me.”
You froze. For a second too long. A lifetime.
“I—” Your voice faltered. The sound came out small, fragile, like a bird trapped in your throat. “I can’t.”
His grip tightened, just for a fraction of a moment, almost like he might pull you with him anyway. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Because he knew. He always knew.
“I’ll come back,” he said, but it sounded like something he needed to believe more than something he knew was true.
“You better,” you choked out, even as your hands slipped from his. Even as the space between you stretched into something impossible. Even as he turned away, disappearing into the chaos. Leaving a weight in your chest that refused to lift.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
You don’t remember letting go, not really. One second your fingers were wrapped around him, holding him like it could keep the world from falling apart, and the next, he was gone. The corridor stretched in a haze of flashing lights and bending walls. Voices shouted, urgent and fractured, calling your name, but you couldn’t answer. You couldn’t. If you turned, if you moved, if you let yourself be dragged into the chaos like everyone else, then it would all be real, and it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
Noise crashed around you. Gunfire tore through the air, alarms screamed, and somewhere something heavy shattered. It all came at once, overwhelming yet strangely distant, like your body had decided it wasn’t meant to fully process it. Your chest heaved, and your legs moved of their own accord. One step, then another, each footfall weighted with panic, as if the world itself pressed down on you. You kept moving because if you kept moving, maybe he would be there, just around the next corner, waiting the way he always had. But he wasn’t.
Then hands grabbed you. Rough, insistent, pulling you away from the path he had taken. Not his. Never his. “No—!” The word tore out of you before you could stop it. “Wait—wait, I need—he—”
“Move!” someone barked, their voice sharp and urgent, leaving no room for hesitation. You struggled, twisting once, twice, just enough to glimpse behind you, just enough to try and see him one last time. A shadow, a shape, movement swallowed by smoke and chaos.
Nothing. And that was worse than seeing him go.
You didn’t cry. There wasn’t time for tears, not while the facility tore itself apart around you. Doors were forced open, systems sparking and failing, people running in every direction as if the walls themselves were collapsing. Your body was carried forward by panic, by instinct, by the need to survive, and each step felt like carrying the weight of loss itself. The air burned your lungs, your chest ached, and yet you kept moving, because standing still was not an option. You had to move.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
The others gathered slowly, scattered fragments of a group that had once been whole. Ri’nela found you first, wrapping her arms around you with a strength that grounded you, made the world feel momentarily real. Nor hovered close, silent as always, but closer than he had ever been, a quiet presence that offered protection without words. You clung to them, because they were here, because they were alive, because you couldn’t afford to lose anything else—not now, not ever.
But your eyes betrayed you, as stubborn and traitorous as ever. They searched through the trees, through the shifting shadows, through every sound that didn’t belong, trying to find something—or someone—that might never be found. Waiting. Hoping.
“He said he’d come back,” you whispered at some point. You weren’t even sure who you were saying it to. If it was Ri’nela, Nor, or just the empty space where he should have been.
Ri’nela didn’t answer.
Nor looked away.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
Night fell faster than you expected, swallowing the forest whole. The trees, once so alive in your earliest memories, now seemed strange, unfamiliar, as if the world itself didn’t quite recognize you anymore. The canopy above stretched wide and dark, the shadows deeper than they should be, and every rustle of leaves felt like a question you couldn’t answer.
You sat awake long after the others had drifted into uneasy sleep, back pressed against the rough bark of a tree, hands curled tightly in your lap. The emptiness in your chest seemed to echo around you, filling every space with a quiet ache you couldn’t name. You replayed it all in your mind—every word, every look, every second you had hesitated when it mattered most.
Come with me.
You could have. Maybe. If you’d just moved, just reached, just let yourself go with him. The thought made your breath hitch, a sharp, uneven pull in your chest, and you pressed your forehead against your knees, hoping somehow that would stop it. It didn’t.
The truth settled over you like cold rain.
You let him go.
And for the first time since you were small,
Since before you even understood what it meant to be alone,
Teylan hadn’t been there to find you.
✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧༺♡༻✧
He's such a cutie patootie I'm ready to defend him with my life.
