Toruk couple 💕
Us in all timelines, in all possibilities
seen from Austria

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seen from Malaysia
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Toruk couple 💕
Us in all timelines, in all possibilities
Pandora has some awesome dragons
My latest art of Toruk Makto 🧡🖤
His hair from A1 is soo pretty i needed to draw it all colourful and filled with feathers
Toruk Jake :3333 giant orange puppy
Check out my twitter for more art! @Chun491784
Fugitive (Part Three)
Summary: You join the RDA young after the world figures out your ability to shapeshift. They offer you a new life- so why does everything feel wrong?
Warning(s): None! :)
Words: 2,945
Taglist: @corpsebride25, @littlemochix17, @ara-a-bird, @wifeyofeveryone, @ithinkimaslutforharry, @kneelarmhstrung, @somaaaaaaaaaa, @runrabbitrun3, @definitely-not-sammie, @diorsvnz, @sous-les-sakura-blog, @glowinthedarkjellyfish, @shycreatorreview, @corpsebride25, @glitterainbows, @cassandra-reborn-anew, @sereinitysmind, @7leo7, @marzipan-has-the-case-of-sillies, @goldenopalring
You step out onto the narrow walkway, and the living wood yields just slightly beneath your weight. Warmth seeps up through the soles of your feet, the lingering breath of yesterday’s sun still caught in its grain.
In daylight, the air sheds its secrecy. What once felt like a single, quiet hush now unfolds into layers- subtle wind currents brushing past your skin, carrying the faint scent of sap, damp leaves, and something almost sweet beneath it all. Light filters through the canopy above in fractured bands, catching on everything.
You can see the structure now. Everywhere, there are signs of use. Corners softened. Edges worn down. Slight depressions where feet fall most often, the path subtly shaped by habit and presence.
Off to one side of a lower platform- where the morning light spills cleanly through a break in the canopy, unbroken and almost reverent- someone sits alone.
An older Na’vi.
His skin carries the evidence in faint, pale scars that catch the light differently than the rest, subtle shifts in texture more than color. His braids fall forward over one shoulder, threaded with beads and small pieces of bone that have long since lost their sharpness, edges softened by years of movement, touch, time.
His posture is low and grounded, weight settled into the platform as if the structure itself recognizes him, as if it has shaped itself around his presence over countless mornings just like this one. There’s no tension in him. No wasted movement. Even his stillness feels active, like a held note that never quite fades.
His hands move.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each motion is measured- not hesitant, but precise in a way that makes it clear there’s no room for carelessness here. Fingers worn but steady, pads slightly calloused, he works with something held loosely between them.
At first, you don’t understand what you’re seeing.
It looks like cord, but that thought falls apart the longer you watch.
It’s not one piece. It’s many.
Strands layered over strands, each one distinct. Some are pale, almost golden in the sunlight: plant fibers, soft-looking but tightly spun. Others are darker, denser, with a faint sheen that suggests strength rather than flexibility. They don’t match. They aren’t meant to.
There are beads woven in- irregular, not decorative in the way the RDA would define it. Pieces of something harder. Bone, maybe. Shell. Tiny fragments of things you can’t identify.
The older Na’vi threads them together with a care that borders on reverence, guiding each strand into place, tightening, adjusting, pausing just long enough to feel before continuing. His fingers linger on certain pieces a fraction longer than others.
The memory surfaces immediately- sharp, sterile, and unwelcome.
Filed away in the same cold place as procedure manuals and threat assessments.
Songcords. Cultural artifacts. Non-functional. Keepsake items constructed from organic materials. Often unsanitary. Not of strategic importance. Dirty trinkets.
Each label slots neatly into place, one after the other, stripped of nuance, stripped of meaning, reduced to something clean, manageable, dismissible. You can almost hear the voice that taught it to you: flat, uninterested, already moving on to something that matters.
The phrase catches somewhere deeper, like a splinter under the skin.
Because nothing about this feels trivial.
Nothing about it feels disposable, or careless, or dirty in the way they meant it.
The light catches along the strands in the older Na’vi’s hands, illuminating the subtle differences between them: the way one fiber has been worn smoother than the others, the faint polish of repeated contact, the slight darkening where oils from skin have soaked in over time. These aren’t neglected materials.
Their touch slows, pressure softening, thumb brushing once along the length of it.
And then they stop.
Just for a moment.
His fingers rest there, curled loosely around that single piece, holding it- not as part of the whole, but as something separate. Something singular.
That’s when you notice it. His lips are moving.
The motion is small enough to be missed entirely if you weren’t already watching so closely.
Soft- so soft it almost slips past you entirely, dissolving into the ambient hum of the canopy. But your ears- your ears now- catch it where they wouldn’t have before. The faint vibration of it. A low, steady melody that doesn’t rise or fall in any dramatic way, doesn’t reach outward or try to be heard.
Your chest tightens before you understand why, something pulling inward, sharp and unfamiliar, like your body is reacting to something your mind hasn’t caught up to yet. The melody presses against your ribs, subtle but insistent, like it’s resonating somewhere it shouldn’t have access to.
You take a step closer.
Your body moves before the thought can form, drawn in by something you can’t name, something that feels less like curiosity and more like gravity.
The shift is enough.
Their hands still.
Not abruptly- no tension, no recoil- but the motion ceases all the same, fingers resting lightly against the cord as if holding its place in the absence of movement.
You hesitate.
The RDA would tell you to dismiss this. To move on. To categorize it as irrelevant behavior.
But you’ve learned what their categories are worth.
“What is that?” you ask, the words coming out quieter than you expected.
The Na’vi studies you for a moment, taking in your posture, your curiosity, the way you haven’t masked it quickly enough.
“A life,” they say simply.
They lift the cord slightly, letting it catch the morning light. Now that you’re closer, you can see more. Each section is distinct- patterns that don’t repeat, materials that shift subtly along its length.
“My life,” they clarify. “My memories. My family. My path.”
Their fingers brush one of the beads again. The song changes, just slightly. A different rhythm. A different feeling.
You feel it before you understand it.
“This is a songcord,” they add, as if that explains everything.
You crouch slowly, careful not to invade their space, but unable to look away.
“You… sing to it?”
A faint smile touches their mouth. Not amused, gentle.
“I sing with it.”
The Na’vi watches you for a moment longer, as if weighing something you can’t see. Then he nods, once, to himself.
“My name is Tsu’ren,” he says, voice low and worn smooth by time.
Your gaze flicks back to the cord- no, his songcord- and the way his fingers rest against it like it’s something alive.
You hesitate, then answer, quieter, “I… don’t have a name you would know.”
The admission feels strange in your mouth. In the RDA, names were recorded, cataloged, attached to files and functions. Here, saying you don’t have one feels like admitting something deeper, something missing.
Tsu’ren doesn’t react the way you expect.
He doesn’t press. Doesn’t question.
Instead, he studies you again, slower this time, his gaze lingering not on your face but on the small tells: your posture, your hands, the way your attention keeps returning to the cord.
“You are listening,” he says at last. “Even when you do not understand.”
Before you can respond, he reaches into a small woven pouch at his side. His fingers sift through its contents, soft clicks of beads brushing together, the faint scrape of polished fragments. He selects one and holds it between thumb and forefinger.
It’s small. Irregular.
Not carved into perfection- left slightly rough along one edge, like it was shaped carefully but not forced into symmetry. Its color is muted, somewhere between pale bone and weathered shell, with faint striations that catch the light when he turns it.
Tsu’ren holds it out to you.
“This is yours,” he says simply.
“I haven’t-” you start, the words catching. “I don’t have anything to add to it.”
A faint smile touches his face, deeper at the edges, worn into place over years.
“You are here,” he says. “That is already something that should be remembered.”
Slowly, carefully, you reach out and take the bead.
Tsu’ren watches the way you hold it, then he nods again, as if confirming a thought.
“You do not have a cord,” he says. Not a question.
You shake your head.
“Then we begin.”
Before you can fully process that, he gestures for you to sit closer. You obey without thinking, lowering yourself onto the living wood across from him.
From the pouch, he draws out a thin length of plant fiber: flexible, strong, already partially prepared. He places it between your hands, guiding your fingers with light, precise touches.
“Hold it like this,” he instructs.
You do, though your movements are stiff, uncertain. Your hands- so capable of shifting, fighting, adapting- feel clumsy here.
Tsu’ren adjusts your grip with quiet patience.
“No force,” he murmurs, voice low enough that it almost blends into the air. “It is not something you make obey. You learn how it wants to be shaped.”
He takes one end, showing you how to split the fibers, how to twist them gently so they bind together without breaking. Your first attempt is too tight- the strand kinks, uneven.
You tense immediately, expecting correction.
Tsu’ren simply reaches over and smooths it out.
“Again,” he says.
You try again.
Slower this time.
Your fingers begin to follow the motion, not perfectly, but better. Twist, guide, breathe. The rhythm is unfamiliar, but not impossible.
Tsu’ren nods once, satisfied.
Then he gestures to the bead in your hand.
“This is the first memory,” he says. “You choose where it sits.”
You stare at it.
Your first memory here.
Not the RDA. Not the cage. Not the running.
Here.
Your throat tightens.
Slowly, you thread the bead onto the forming cord, hands trembling just slightly as you work it into place. It resists at first- your movements still too rigid- but eventually it settles, held securely between the fibers.
Tsu’ren watches the entire process in silence.
When you finish, he begins to hum again- soft, steady. The same low melody as before, but altered slightly, shaped to this moment instead of his.
Soon, Tsu’ren’s humming stills. Your own voice falters a half-second later, the note thinning into silence as something shifts in the air around you.
Footsteps approach along the woven walkway- measured, deliberate, unhurried.
You don’t need to look up to know who it is.
Your spine straightens instinctively. Your hands still around the half-formed cord, fingers curling slightly as if unsure whether to hide it or hold it tighter.
Tsu’ren glances past you, then dips his head in quiet acknowledgment.
“Tìraney,” he greets.
You turn.
She stands at the edge of the platform, framed by morning light filtering through the canopy. The glow catches along the bone-threaded braids in her hair, along the subtle markings across her skin. She looks exactly as she did the night before- composed, grounded, unreadable.
But there is something different in her eyes.
Her gaze settles on you- not unkind, not warm. Assessing, as always.
“You have been busy,” she says, her voice low.
Your grip tightens slightly on the cord before you can stop yourself. “I-was shown,” you answer carefully.
Her eyes flick briefly to Tsu’ren, who gives the smallest of nods.
“Good,” she says simply.
Tìraney steps fully onto the platform, her presence quiet but undeniable.
“The elders will hear you now,” she says.
It’s not unexpected. You knew this was coming the moment she told you to stay the night. Still, the reality of it settles heavy in your stomach.
This is where you could lose everything.
You rise slowly, careful, controlled. Your body feels steadier now- rested enough to hold the shape, strong enough to stand without the tremor betraying you. Still, you’re acutely aware of every movement, every breath.
Every tell.
Tìraney watches all of it.
“Come,” she says.
You hesitate, just for a fraction of a second, then glance down at the cord in your hands.
It’s small. Uneven. Barely begun.
Proof.
Tsu’ren notices. Of course he does.
“Bring it,” he says quietly. “If you are to speak truth, let it be carried with you.”
You nod, once.
Carefully, you gather the cord, looping it once around your fingers so it doesn’t drag or tangle. The bead rests near your thumb, warm now from your touch.
You follow Tìraney.
The walk through the settlement feels different this time. Yesterday, you were an unknown thing being observed from a distance. Today, you are something being considered.
The elders are already waiting.
They are seated in a loose semicircle, bodies still, eyes sharp. Some are old in the way of years, others in the way of experience. All of them carry a weight that makes your instincts flare.
Tìraney steps forward.
“This one came to us in the night,” she says, her voice carrying cleanly across the space. “Alone. Running. Speaking our tongue, though not born to it.”
A few elders shift slightly. One’s gaze sharpens.
“They claim knowledge of the sky-people’s plans,” she continues. “And ask that word be carried to Toruk Makto.”
An elder at the far left leans forward, their voice rough with age but sharp with intent. “If you carry the sky-people’s knowledge,” they say, “then you will give it now.”
Another shifts, eyes narrowing slightly. “Not in fragments. Not in fear. Speak clearly.”
A third, quieter but no less commanding: “What do they plan to do to this land?”
You step fully into the center, every instinct screaming at you to measure, to soften, to survive. But there is no room for half-truths here. Not anymore.
You draw a breath.
“They are not coming like before,” you say.
The elders remain still, listening.
“They’ve changed how they fight. New machines. New weapons.” Your hands tighten unconsciously at your sides. “They studied what failed them- and they adapted.”
A low murmur moves through the circle.
You press on before hesitation can take hold.
“They map the land from above. They choose where to burn based on how fast it will spread. Where the wind will carry it. Where it will trap anything living between flame and machines.” Your voice tightens despite yourself. “They don’t see the forest as something alive. They see it as something that can be removed.”
An elder’s hand curls slowly against the root they sit upon.
You force yourself to keep going.
“They are building new atmospheric processors near the coast. Larger than before. Not just for air.” You shake your head slightly. “They will change the land around them. Poison it slowly while they take what they want quickly.”
Silence again.
Heavier now.
“They are not just attacking,” you say. “They are preparing to stay.”
That lands.
Another elder speaks, voice low. “And Toruk Makto?”
You don’t hesitate this time.
“They are hunting him,” you say.
The words feel like striking flint.
“He is not just an enemy to them. He is proof they cannot control this world.” Your jaw tightens. “Every failure is tied back to him. Every loss. They speak his name like a problem they haven’t solved yet.”
You swallow.
“They are sending specialized units. Tracking teams. Machines built to follow movement across long distances. They’re watching migration paths, supply routes- anything that might lead them to him or his family.”
The forest seems to go still around you.
No insects. No distant calls. Just the weight of what you’ve said settling into the roots beneath your feet.
One of the elders closes their eyes briefly.
Another exhales through their nose, slow and controlled.
Tìraney does not move- but her attention sharpens, locking onto every word.
Finally, the eldest among them, the one who has not yet spoken, leans forward slightly.
“If we call for Toruk Makto,” they say, voice quiet but absolute, “we do not call him for fear. We call him with purpose.”
Their gaze fixes on you.
“What must he know?”
You feel it before you speak: the shift in your chest, the tightening at the base of your throat. The instinct to keep the rest buried. To stay useful without becoming dangerous. That old RDA-trained reflex: reveal only what is necessary to survive the next minute.
But there is no next minute that matters if you lie now.
Your grip tightens around the unfinished songcord in your hand. The bead presses into your skin like an anchor.
You breathe in.
And step off the edge you’ve been balancing on since you arrived.
“I wasn’t just taught by the sky people. I worked for them.”
A few subtle shifts ripple through the elders- posture tightening, hands adjusting on carved wood, the smallest recalculations happening all at once.
“I didn’t come here because I escaped by accident,” you admit.
You look down for a fraction of a second- just long enough to steady yourself- then back up.
“I know how they think,” you continue. “I know how they track movement, how they test loyalty, how they escalate when something doesn’t behave the way they expect.”
You take a breath, then say the part you’ve been avoiding since the moment you spoke his name.
“I was inside their systems,” you say. “Not at the top. Not in command. But close enough. That’s why he needs more than warning. He needs someone who understands how they move. How they escalate. What they try when the obvious plan fails.”
Your throat tightens again, but you don’t stop.
“I can help him survive what comes next.”
Tìraney finally speaks, voice measured.
“You are asking us to carry your truth to Toruk Makto,” she says. “And also to carry you with it.”
You nod once.
“Yes.”
Another long silence.
Then the eldest elder exhales slowly.
“Then when he comes,” they say, “he will decide what you are.”
Ok, but like, what if I swapped a thanator and toruk??? 👀
I want to do this next with a zakru and tulkun... maybe the zakru will be like a floating island... also wanted to do this with either a direhorse/iku, iku/ikran, or direhorse/ikran and I can't decide which combination to do
LEARNING THE STORM.
...
Jake Sully x Na'vi!Female! reader
'Realising'
Kinda Long, fluff, smut, love making?
Sorry if any mistakes found! Didn't edit this!!
I hope ya'll like this
...
You catch him the way the moon catches the river, unwillingly, always. He's there at the edge of the clearing when you come back from hunting, shoulders a little too broad for the lean silhouette of the trees, braid messy because he fussed with it all afternoon trying to make it look "right."
You scowl before you walk the last few steps.
scolding is your language, habit, armor. He deserves it. Or so you tell yourself.
"Did you—" you begin, folding your arms across your chest. Your voice is all pointed edges. "—another one of your clumsy offers? You know I can hunt. I don't need—"
His ears perk up. It's the smallest thing, a twitch at the base, like a question. You know better than anyone that that little motion means a dozen things at once for him.
hope, worry, waiting.
The tail that you once thought as stubborn as a young ikran's suddenly becomes a compass, it wags, a slow, shy swish that betrays him better than any words could. You stop mid-sentence because his whole face is honest and ridiculous and entirely, ludicrously yours.
He steps closer and the scent of him, oil from his braid, the sweat of practice, wraps around you like a blanket.
For anyone else, his earnestness looks like training wheels, Jake with everyone, earnest and open, the way he laughs too loud and explains too much.
For you, it's different. His gaze finds your shoulders, your jaw, the line of your neck, and he becomes careful. The way he lowers his chin when you scold is not shame.
"You worry too much" he says, voice quiet enough so only you hear, and there it is, the confession echoes in his tone, not in words. You pretend not to.
You keep scolding because habit is safer than answering. Because if you stopped pushing him away, you might have to let in the shape of everything he wants to give you.
A week ago he says in a clearing full of stars and crickets.
with a laugh that cracked halfway through and a hand that hovered over yours for a heartbeat before he dropped it.
"I think…" he'd said, then turned red underneath the blue. "I think I'm beyond repair." You told him he was dramatic and then smacked his arm.
He had smiled like it was the best thing anyone had ever said, and you have been pretending not to know his heart ever since.
At night he watches you sleep sometimes. You pretend not to know that either. When he thinks you are deep in dream, your lashes resting soft across your cheeks, you mime the world as aloof, untouched, but in truth you are listening.
You know when his breathing changes. You know when his tail brushes in a nervous loop. When you wake with the faintest smile and roll your eyes as if to yourself, you do it to keep from admitting that the warmth by your side is exactly what you want.
He is ridiculous in the most perfect way. trying to teach you the silly motions of a human game, showing up at your training sessions with a grin as if to say "watch me do it for you."
You scold, he looks as if you just offered him the sun. You're sharp because that's your way of saying safe. he is soft because that's his way of saying home.
He'll stand a little straighter when you stride into the village, scanning your face for that flash of approval. His smile is different when he thinks you are looking, uncontrolled, luminous, as if the bioluminescence in the trees had chosen to pour itself into his chest.
He jokes with kids, practical with hunters, clumsy and earnest with the ones who are strangers. But with you, he shrinks and grows at once, earnestness turned tender, nerves braided into devotion.
When you scold him in the morning, about leaving your spear near the stream, about humming off-key, about how he tried to braid your hair without asking, his ears twitch and his tail gives a little anxious wag. Then he answers you with something small and brave.
"I'm trying to be better for you" he says once, the words tumbling out like a breath he can no longer hold. "You make me want to be better."
You scoff.
Later, when the glow-worms come out and the world lowers its voice, you find him under the same tree where he taught himself to watch the stars. He looks so open there, like a child and a warrior folded into one. You sit because he is there, not because you have to. He offers you a slice of roasted fruit, clumsily cut but offered with a devotion that leaves you dizzy.
"Are you asleep?" you ask him, teasing, because you can be sharp and tender in the same breath.
He watches you with everything he has ever been brave enough to show. His ears tilt forward. His tail brushes yours, not by accident. For a moment, there is no scolding. There is only the warm gravity between you.
"Not when you're around" he says.
You pretend not to hear. He hums, the low sound that is uniquely his, and somewhere in it is a promise clumsy, earnest, utterly true.
...
You move like water through the tall ferns, feet barely making a sound, and there he is again.
waiting where the trail narrows, shoulders turned toward the river as if the flow itself might teach him patience.
You puff out a small, sharp sound.
"Stop gawking and help me pull the net"
you scold. There are a hundred ways you could say it that would send him scrambling to please you, you choose the blunt ones because bluntness is honest and because watching him try is quietly excellent entertainment.
He grins that grin he thinks hides everything. It doesn't.
When you look at him, his whole face rearranges. ears tip, tail gives a tiny, traitorous wag, and the freckles around his nose get brighter like they're lit from the inside.
You pretend not to notice. You fold the net with efficient fingers and leave him to find the right knot.
He watches you the way some hunters watch a prey they adore. not hungry, not cruel, only… riveted. And it's obvious.
So obvious that sometimes even the birds seem embarrassed for him. But you scowl anyway, because scowling is your forte and because if you're not scolding, he'll melt into an lovely puddle of earnestness right in front of everyone.
"You're wasting light" you tell him later, when he lingers and wipes his hands on his trousers instead of helping carry the traps. Your voice is flat, your tail flicks a reprimand into his direction.
His step toward you is slow, careful, like approaching a sleeping animal that trusts you.
"I'm not—" he starts, then stops because the right words are slippery.
He tries other small things, a joke that makes his ears perk, a clumsy attempt at mimicking your knot-tying that has him concentrating so hard his lower lip trembles.
You pretend to be unimpressed, but you check his hands for cuts. You smooth a strand of your hair over a leaf stuck to his cheek because someone's got to be practical, and also because your fingers brush warmth that isn't the forest's.
At night, the grove becomes a ceiling of stars pinned to velvet leaves. You sit with your back against a great root and watch him move a little closer than necessary when he thinks you're not looking.
He hums softly, a human sound softened into the rhythm of this place, and the hum fills the gaps between the things you don't say.
your shoulders relax.
You catch yourself listening to the way his chest rises and falls and realize the cadence is steadying you more than any breath you were taught. He hums on, pleased as a child who has succeeded without having to ask permission.
You tell yourself he is earnest with everyone. You tell yourself you know him, that his softness is a gift he packs out for the world like a clean cloth.
Maybe, in a way, it's true, he offers kindness in broad strokes, but you feel, in small unmistakable ways, that his earnestness is reserved. He is easier, brighter, more attentive when your shadow crosses his path.
When you glance at him, his pupils widen as if you've entered the only room he ever wanted to light.
There are tiny betrayals of his feelings that you refuse to catalog.
the way his ears flatten against his head if someone else compliments you, the way his tail tucks a little when you laugh too loudly at something not meant for him.
He watches for your approval like a hunter watches for wind direction, and he gives it such weight you could build a shelter from it.
One afternoon you push him into the shallow part of the river, a nudge disguised as discipline for fumbling the net. He splashes at you, laughter like a flint striking, and for a thin, suspended second, your scowl melts entirely.
The water beads off his hair, trickles along the line of his jaw, and you catch yourself wanting to wipe it away, as if your touch could set something right for him. You don't. Instead you jab him with a finger and tell him to fetch the other end of the net.
He comes back with both ends and a grin that threatens to break open into something too honest for everyday. "You okay?" he asks, and it's the gentlest thing he could have said. Not heroic speech, not a vow, just a small, steady question that expects you to answer honestly because he's ready to listen.
"Fine" you say. But your fingers, when they lift, find his hand and press, just for a heartbeat. Your thumb traces a pattern on the inside of his wrist, a quick, indifferent motion that means everything nothing. He freezes like the world has been rearranged into something better. The sound he makes is nothing like a laugh, it's softer, like someone discovering a new word.
He thinks you don't see. He thinks you don't care. He is wrong.
Later, when the campfire is low and the stars have deepened into a chorus of white, he edges closer once again. This time, he does not try to hide the way his ears lean toward you.
"You were—" he begins, then gives up on words and leans his head against your shoulder with a bravery that takes more courage than any battle story.
You stiffen, then let your back settle against his. It's an arrangement that should be awkward, and somehow it isn't.
"Stop looking for reasons to impress me" you mutter, because old habits are safe and blunt words cost you less. You don't move away when he squeezes your hand in quiet victory.
"I'm not trying to impress anyone else" he says, voice a low warmth against the skin of your neck. "Only you."
You feel the confession more than hear it, a small thing dropped like seed into the soft earth of your chest. You want to scowl, to turn away and note his earnestness as a harmless quirk.
He exhales like a string finally loosed. His ears unfurl. You pretend not to notice how his whole body seems to reorient to you like a compass finding true north.
"You're infuriating" you whisper.
"And you're impossible" he answers, happily. The grin is back, crooked, stubborn, wholly his. You let yourself smile. it's small , the shape of something new and steady. Under the glow of the trees, with the night breathing around you, it's enough to make him look like the whole world is smiling too.
You still scold him the next morning. You still make him knot the nets and fetch the water. But there's a new light in the way he moves when you glance his way, a pressure in his chest that translates to a dozen tiny, constant kindnesses. You call it earnestness, he calls it devotion. Either way, it's soft, and it's for you, and that fact makes all the scowls taste a little sweeter.
...
You tell yourself you’re not eavesdropping. You’re not. You’re only moving through the compound on purpose, doing a hundred tiny tasks that require exacting attention, carving, checking traps, folding the wash, and somehow Jake’s voice finds the corners of your world anyway.
He’s near the cooking fire, speaking with a younger male, one of the new hunters who still has the raw, impatient curiosity of youth. You keep your back to them, pretending to tend the coals, but the words carry. Na'vi voices are made to travel; they find the places you don’t want them to.
“Heat?” the younger one asks, genuine and a little embarrassed, like a child asking how colors change in the rain. “How would you even—how would you know that?”
Jake smiles, but it’s softer than his usual grin. There’s no cheap bravado in it, only the kind of humility that forms when someone has learned to listen to things that aren’t spoken outright.
“You watch” he replies. “You learn. You notice the small tells.” He speaks simply, like explaining a tracking sign. “Tail, scent, eyes. The way she moves when she thinks no one is looking. How her breath catches when the wind changes. How she makes space for herself and then takes it back.”
You feel the heat in your face at his words, though it isn’t only the sun. He doesn’t name you. He doesn’t need to. You are the map he’s been learning to read.
The younger male frowns. “Who taught you? I mean—who teaches a male to notice that?”
“I pay attention.”
Your ears flick. Pay attention to whom?
He doesn’t say. He doesn’t need to.
Jake shrugs, almost sheepish. “No one taught me with words.” He glances in your direction, not a stare, but a study. “You learn from being close. From paying attention. From being trusted with the small things. From being honest when you’re wrong.” His jaw sets. “Sometimes you just…watch. You keep your body steady. You don’t mistake need for permission.”
“Sounds like hard work” the boy mutters, half in admiration, half in awe.
Jake’s mouth quirks. “It is. But it’s worth it.” Then, quieter, almost to himself, “If you want to be there when she needs you, you better learn how to read her.”
the words warm you in a way you did not expect. You set the basket down with a noise that’s louder than intended, and in the pause, you feel him turn his head.
He looks at you the way hunters look at a prize they’ve cherished for seasons, careful, reverent, like he’s noting each line and saving them for later. The younger male looks between you two, a blush blooming when he catches what everyone already knows.
Jake stands, slowly, as if rising to meet a weather shift, and crosses the small space toward you.
You keep busy with the coals because movement is armor. Still, you feel him come so close that the air around your shoulder warms. There’s an accidental brush when he steps past.
His palm grazes the small of your back, a feathered touch that leaves the impression of a firebrand. The contact is brief, professional seeming, but the heat of his hand lingers in your skin like afterglow.
You don’t look up.
You feel his tell lines, ears tilt forward, tail gives a barely perceptible sweep, the little pull at his mouth when he’s choosing words. He’s watching you, yes, observing, as he said and it is obvious.
You catch, out of the corner of your eye, that his shoulder flex a fraction, shifting a stance without meaning to show off, a hunter’s posture that translates differently when someone is looking at you the way he does. You notice his chest rise a beat quicker when your eyes flick toward him, you notice how his pupils narrow into that soft, hopeful black when you meet his gaze. Your skin prickles.
“Are you…all right?” he asks.
You snort, trying to make the sound sharp. “I’m always all right.”
He doesn’t push. He never pushes. There’s an unspoken line after that 'I’ll be careful, I’ll be here, I’ll hold this for you' that he doesn’t say, but you understand because he’s started paying attention to you in the way that matters.
You want to be annoyed at the attention. You want to scold him for watching like that. Instead you find your tail giving an answering flick, the tiniest admission of response.
He takes it as a gift and shifts closer, not to take, but to belong. The brush of his palm returns. this time, not accidental, resting low on your hip for one slow heartbeat. It is warmth, pressure, comfort. It is a promise disguised as a touch.
You pretend to look away. You pretend not to feel your breath hitch. You turn your face to the fire and let the embers paint light across your cheek, because words are careless things and you are not ready to let the quiet between you be named.
Jake watches you, and now you watch him watching you. He learns every small betray of your body and tucks them away like treasures. He will observe, as he said. He will wait. And the timing, the terrible, perfect timing of your heat right now, will make him more observant than he’s ever been.
You put the thought aside, tell yourself you will not care, but that night, as you move through the camp and his eyes track you, the knowledge that he is learning you, that he notices the way your gaze lingers on his arms, his stupid, five fingered arms, makes the space between you hum with a life you are yet willing to name.
...
The fire has burned down to a nest of low embers by the time the camp quiets enough for honest things to happen.
You slip away first, silent feet, tail low and still, moving toward the thinner fringe of forest where the river bends and the moss grows thick enough to swallow sound. The heat has been coiling inside you since midday, slow at first, then insistent, a deep rhythmic pulse that makes every brush of air against your thighs feel like a tongue. You hate how predictable it is. Hate how your body announces itself whether you give permission or not.
You don’t hear him follow.
You feel him.
The shift in the air, the sudden weight of someone who knows exactly how not to snap a twig. He stops several paces back, giving you the courtesy of distance, but close enough that his scent, warm skin, crushed fern, the faint mineral bite of river water still clinging to him, reaches you before his voice does.
“You didn’t have to come alone,” he says, quiet. No demand in it. Just fact.
You don’t turn. Your tail gives one slow, deliberate lash. “I don’t need an escort.”
“I know.” A pause. The soft sound of him shifting weight from one foot to the other. “But I’m here anyway.”
The words land low in your belly, right where the ache has settled and started to throb in time with your heartbeat. You press your thighs together without meaning to. The friction makes you bite the inside of your cheek.
He takes one careful step closer.
“You’re burning up,” he murmurs, and it isn’t mockery. It’s recognition. Almost worship. “I can smell it from here. Sweet. Sharp. Like fruit left too long in the sun.”
Your ears flatten. Shame and want twist together until you can’t tell which is which.
“Stop talking like that.”
“Like what?” His voice drops softer. “Like I’ve been paying attention?”
You finally turn. The moonlight catches the freckles across his collarbones, the long line of his throat when he swallows. He’s sweaty, has been since he helped haul the last of the nets in, and the sight of him like this hits you like a spear to the gut.
Your eyes betray you immediately, tracing the impossible lines of him, the broad swell of his pecs, dusted with faint scars from battles he never boasts about, the way his biceps flex just from the act of standing there, cords of muscle shifting under blue skin like rivers under earth.
Your gaze drops lower, to the narrow taper of his waist, the hard ridges of his abs that clench when he breathes, each one a proof to the human stubbornness that made him this, strong, unyielding, yours in ways you’ve pretended not to notice.
And eywa help you, those arms, thick, veined, ending in hands with five damn fingers that you’ve caught yourself staring at during hunts, imagining how they’d feel splayed across your skin, how those extra digits might curl just right inside you.
Your body responds before your mind can catch up, a fresh rush of slick heat between your thighs, so much it trickles down, warm and insistent.
He doesn’t move closer. Not yet.
But his tail lifts, slow and questioning, the very tip curling in the universal Na’vi signal for may I?
Your own tail answers before your mouth can lie. It rises, brushes once against his in a fleeting, electric slide.
That’s all the permission he needs.
Jake closes the distance in two strides. Not rushing. Not lunging. Just inevitable. When he reaches you his hands hover at your waist, close enough to feel heat radiating off your skin, not close enough to take.
“Tell me to leave” he says, voice rougher now. “Say it and I’m gone. No questions.”
You stare at the pulse beating fast under his jaw. The way his pupils have swallowed almost all the colour. The faint tremor in his fingers.
You could send him away.
You don’t.
Instead you reach up, curl your fingers into the base of his braid, and tug.
His breath punches out of him.
Then he’s on you.
Hands finally land, one splayed wide across your lower back, the other sliding up to cup the nape of your neck. He kisses like a human would, probably. tentative, asking.
He kisses like he’s been starving for it. Mouth open, tongue seeking yours in long, deliberate strokes that taste like river water and want. You bite down on his lower lip just hard enough to make him growl low in his chest.
The sound vibrates through you, settles right between your legs.
He walks you backward until your shoulders meet smooth bark. The tree is cool against fevered skin; the contrast makes you arch. Jake takes the invitation, drops to his knees in front of you like a man swearing an oath.
His hands slide down your sides, thumbs brushing the sensitive line where hip meets thigh. He looks up at you through dark lashes, eyes glassy.
“Been thinking about this” he confesses, voice wrecked. “Every time you scold me. Every time your tail flicks like I’ve done something right and wrong at the same time. Been thinking about getting my mouth on you until you can’t form words to yell at me anymore.”
Heat floods your face. You should snap something cutting. Instead your fingers tighten in his hair.
“Then stop talking,” you rasp “and do it.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
Jake hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, careful, and presses his face to the seam of your thigh. Inhales deep, like he’s memorizing you.
He chuckles, the sound low and rough, rumbling against your skin like distant thunder.
A sound rips out of you, needy and whined high in your throat.
“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he murmurs, eyes flicking up to yours, sparkling with pure, unfiltered awe. “Dripping for me already. Listen to that, god, it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.”
You want to scold him, to snap that it’s his fault, but the words dissolve into another whimper when he dives back in. His mouth is relentless now, tongue lapping at you in firm, greedy strokes, sucking your clit between his lips with just enough pressure to make stars burst behind your eyelids.
Those five fingered hands, fuck them, grip your thighs, spreading you wider, one thumb circling lazy patterns on the inside of your knee while the other hand slides up, two fingers plunging deep into your heat. You’re so wet they sink in without resistance, the slick sounds obscene in the quiet night, and he curls them immediately, stroking that spot inside you that makes your vision blur.
Your body is a traitor, hyperaware of every inch of him, the flex of his biceps as he holds you open, the way his pecs shift with each breath he takes against your core, the heat of his abs brushing your calf where it dangles over his shoulder.
You can feel the ridges of his abs through the thin barrier of air, imagine tracing them with your tongue later, and the thought makes you clench around his fingers.
He groans into you, the vibration shooting straight to your spine.
“That’s it” he breathes, pulling back for a heartbeat to watch his fingers disappear inside you, coated in your arousal.
His eyes. eywa, those eyes, are mesmerized, sparkling like the river under moonlight, utterly captivated by the sight of you spread for him, glistening and flushed and beautiful.
He looks at you like you’re the sacred site he’s been seeking his whole life, like every curve of your body, every stripe across your hips and thighs, is a revelation he’s so unworthy of.
“So fucking gorgeous” he whispers, voice thick with reverence. “Every part of you. Could stare at this forever.”
The praise undoes you. He obliges, adding a third finger, stretching you slow and thorough, his tongue flicking faster now, relentless, until the coil in your belly snaps.
You come with a shattered cry, thighs trembling around his head, waves of pleasure crashing through you so hard your vision spins, dots of light dancing like fireflies in the dark.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up, just works you through it with soft, insistent licks until you’re gasping, oversensitive, tugging at his hair to drag him up.
He rises slowly, lips shiny with you, chest heaving. You grab his face, messy, desperate, and kiss him, tasting your own sharp sweetness on his tongue. He presses against you, the hard length of him hot and insistent against your stomach, and you whine again into his mouth, the sound muffled but needy.
Your eyes are spinning still, the world tilting as hyperawareness floods back in sharper focus, the salt of his skin under your palms as you trace his pecs, feeling them jump under your touch, the way his waist narrows into hips you want to bruise with your teeth, the stupid, perfect flex of his abs as he shifts to lift you higher against the tree.
Every detail etches itself into you, the faint scars on his biceps from human wars he left behind, the extra finger on each hand that curls against your hip now, promising things no touch could match.
Your body hums with it, slick and aching for more, every nerve lit up like the glowing vines overhead.
“Need you” you breathe against his lips, the admission raw, stripped of scolds or armor. “Now, Jake. Please.”
He doesn’t make you beg twice. With a low, reverent groan, he strips away the barrier of his loincloth, freeing himself, heavy, thick, the flushed length of him curving up toward his navel, tip already leaking.
He lifts you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist, and notches himself at your entrance. The first press is slow, deliberate, the broad head parting you inch by agonizing inch. You’re so wet, so ready, that he slides in deep with barely any resistance, but the stretch burns so good, filling you utterly, pressing against every hidden place inside until you’re gasping, nails digging into the meat of his shoulders.
“Fuck—tight,” he rasps, forehead pressed to yours, hips rolling in shallow thrusts to let you adjust. “You feel like heaven. Like you were made for this—for me.”
He starts to move then. Long, languid strokes that drag him almost all the way out before sinking back in, grinding deep on every return until his pelvis nudges your clit.
His hands roam, one braced against the tree for leverage, the other splayed across your lower back, fingers splaying wide, five of them, all of them to hold you steady. You can feel the power in his arms, the way his biceps bulge with each thrust, veins standing out like rivers on a map you want to follow with your tongue. His abs contract against your belly, hard and unyielding, a rhythm you match with your own hips, rolling up to meet him.
It’s intimate, consuming, the wet slide of him inside you, the way he fills you so completely you can feel every ridge, every pulse of his cock against your walls. He kisses you through it, slow and deep, swallowing your moans as his pace builds, hips snapping a little harder, a little faster. Sweat beads on his chest, trickles down the valley between his pecs, and you lean in to lick it away, tasting salt and him, your teeth grazing the swell of muscle there until he shudders.
“Ma’Jake” you whisper, the words slipping out involuntarily. It hangs between you like a vow.
His eyes snap to yours, with something fierce and tender. “Say it again,” he growls, thrusting deeper, the angle shifting to hit that spot inside you that makes your toes curl.
“Ma’Jake,” you gasp, louder this time, your voice breaking on the edge of a moan.
That’s when he moves, reaching back with one hand to gather your queue, the pink tendrils alive and seeking, brushing against his own in a spark of electric want. Yours twines with his without hesitation, the bond snapping into place like roots finding soil.
The bond forms, and the world explodes into sensation.
You feel everything.
His love crashes into you first, vast, unyielding, a tidal wave of certainty that drowns out every doubt you’ve ever harbored.
It’s in the steady thrum of his heart against yours, the way he’s always seen you, not as the fierce hunter or the scowling, but as the center of his universe. You feel the panic that had gripped him seconds ago, sharp and cold as a viper’s strike, convinced, bone deep, that you were about to choose someone else, some pure blooded warrior who wouldn’t falter in the ways he still does.
The fear had clawed at him, a terror that you’d slip away like smoke through his fingers, leaving him hollowed out, adrift in a world that had only just started to feel like home because of you.
And then the relief now, flooding in warm and bright and overwhelming, a sunrise after endless night, pure, joyous yes, the kind that makes his chest ache with gratitude, his thrusts faltering for a heartbeat as he presses deeper, as if to seal you to him forever.
You feel how badly he’s wanted you, every stolen glance across the fire, his eyes tracing the curve of your neck when you laughed with the others, committing it to memory like a sacred carving, every time his tail betrayed him with that eager wag when you strode past, brushing close enough for your scents to mingle, leaving him hard and aching in the shadows, every night he lay awake under the stars, replaying the sound of your voice scolding him, “You’re wasting light, skxawng” like it was the sweetest melody, a balm to the loneliness he’d carried from his human life.
He’d touch himself to the phantom echo of it, imagining your eyes raking over him the way they do now, dark and hungry, stripping him bare. It’s all there, raw and unfiltered, the devotion that bloomed slow, from clumsy offers to quiet vigils by your side, the certainty that you are his horizon, his north, the one thing worth every scar and stumble.
And he feels you, oh, he feels you, and it nearly undoes him. Your restraint, the iron walls you’ve built around your heart, forged from too many losses, too many skies that promised and then stormed. He tastes the doubt that’s shadowed you, a bitter undercurrent, the fear that a dreamwalker like him could never truly stay, that his sky people blood would pull him back to the cold metal stars, leaving you with nothing but echoes and empty nests.
He feels the ache every time you pushed him away, not cruelty, but self preservation, a shield against the terror of loving something fragile, something that might shatter under eywa’s gaze.
And deeper still, the secret fire that’s burned for him longer than you’ll ever voice, the way your body has betrayed you in hunts, thighs clenching at the sight of his arms flexing to draw a bow, your core throbbing when his five fingered hand brushed yours by accident, nights you’d wake slick and empty, fingers circling your clit to visions of him pinning you down, filling you until you forgot how to scold.
It’s all laid bare in the bond, your want, fierce and unyielding, a mirror to his own, the restraint cracking now like dry earth under rain.
The sharing amplifies everything, his thrusts feel like they echo in your soul, each deep plunge sending ripples of shared pleasure through you both. You’re loud now, Eywa, so loud, moans tearing from your throat unbidden, raw cries of “Ma’Jake!” and broken pleas that blend with the wet slap of skin, the rustle of leaves overhead.
The bond turns it filthy, you feel his cock twitch inside you as your walls flutter, taste his building release like it’s your own, the coil tightening in tandem.
He gets rougher, spurred by the flood of your shared truths, the certainty in him fueling an edge.
His hips snap forward harder, faster, the tree bark scraping your back in a delicious burn that you arch into. One hand grips your thigh, hiking it higher around his waist to open you wider, letting him drive deeper, the head of his cock kissing your cervix with every brutal thrust. His other hand, slides between you, thumb circling your clit in firm, insistent strokes that make you sob, oversensitive and soaring.
You rake your nails down his back, scoring deep welts over his spine, urging him on, and he moans, a sound that vibrates through like thunder in your bones.
“Mine” he rasps, teeth sinking into the curve of your neck, not breaking skin but marking with the promise of it. “Feel that? You’re mine—fuck, so tight, clenching like you never wanna let go.” His pace turns punishing, hips pistoning with a force that jolts you up, your breasts bouncing with each impact, nipples hard peaks dragging against his chest. The bond makes you feel the slap of your ass against his thighs, the obscene squelch of your slick coating him, dripping down to where his balls tighten, heavy and full, slapping against you.
You’re incoherent now, loud cries echoing into the night “Jake—ma’Jake—harder, please—don’t stop—" of whines and gasps. The bond feeds it back, he feels your climax building like a storm on the edge, the way it makes your walls ripple around him, milking him greedily. It pushes him over, his thrusts erratic, rough, one hand fisting in your hair to tilt your head back, exposing your throat for his mouth to claim again, sucking bruises into the blue skin there.
“Come with me,” he demands, voice gravel and command, thumb pressing hard on your clit as he grinds deep, rolling his hips to drag against that spot inside. “Let me feel you--Oh.”
The bond ignites. Your release hits hard, blinding, all consuming, walls convulsing around him in rhythmic pulses that pull him under. You moan his name, the sound raw and wild, body seizing as pleasure rips through you, you feel his own peak crashing in, hot and endless, his cock swelling as he buries himself to the hilt and spills. Thick ropes of come flood you, pulsing deep, the warmth of it triggering aftershocks that make you whimper, clench, take every drop like it’s sustenance.
He doesn’t pull out, can’t, won’t, staying seated inside you as you both tremble, the bond humming with the afterglow, his love wrapping around your doubts like vines claiming stone, your restraint melting into quiet surrender. He kisses you slow, soft, murmuring nonsense against your lips, leaving you sated, marked, irrevocably changed.
“You still gonna scold me?” he murmurs, lips brushing yours.
You huff. Drag your nails lightly down his spine.
“Every day.”
His grin is blinding. Happy. Utterly yours.
“Good” he says, kissing the corner of your mouth. “I like earning it.”
And under the glowing trees, with him still inside you and the night breathing quiet around you both, you finally let yourself smile.
Maybe earning it isn’t so bad after all.
....
Mom. The horny ghost possessed me.
Also I kinda craved love.








