Homecoming: Chapters One and Two
His body formed a solid wall at your back. You could feel the heat of him, the controlled rise and fall of his breathing, the faint scent of forest resin and clean skin. He reached around without asking, settled the bow into your hands, and adjusted your grip with brisk, impersonal fingers.
"Feet here. Elbow high. Sight along the arrow. The heart sits behind the front shoulder." His voice remained cool, instructional, stripped of anything softer. Yet his closeness to your warm, injured skin made the air around you feel narrower. You drew the string as he directed. The arrow flew, missed the nearest animal by a clear handspan, and buried itself into the dirt. The creature raised its head, ears flicking, but did not flee. A quiet sound left the young warrior, something between a breath and a humourless note.
"Again," he commanded. "And this time actually aim for the Sturmbeest."
Summary: Stolen from the Sarentu clan and raised beneath the tyrannical watch of the RDA, you learnt early that being Na’vi did not mean you belonged among them. The only piece of your old life you had left was your sister, Aha’ri, and the stories she told you and the other envoys about the world beyond the walls of the The Ambassador Programme.
Then John Mercer took that from you too.
Years later, you escape the programme with little more than fractured memories, grief, an encyclopaedic knowledge of RDA operations and little idea of how to survive the world your body was supposedly made for. When the Omatikaya find you barely alive, Toruk Makto offers you a place among them, in exchange for everything you knows about the RDA. But the surviving the clan may prove harder than escaping the Sky People. Especially when you are placed under the care of rising clan leader, Neteyam Sully. To him, you are Sky People. RDA. Enemy. To you, he is everything you have only ever heard about in stories. Yet he is also everything that is holding you back from true belonging. Neither of you are prepared for the formidable wall between your rivalry and understanding to fall.
Chapters 1–2 follow your escape from the RDA’s TAP facility, your first few weeks with the Omatikaya, and the beginning of a strained relationship neither you nor Neteyam expected.
Content: 18+ mdni, neteyam x fem! na’vi reader, enemies to lovers, feisty reader who matches neteyam, aged up neteyam, slow burn, mature themes, protagonist insecurity in indentity and belonging, masturbation, avatar frontiers of Pandora and James Cameron avatar films mix, future smut, descriptions of injuries, mentions of grief and death
WC: 10.4k
Chapter One
Aha'ri was supposed to be the one who led you to victory. The leader. The freedom-fighter. The sister who would finally break free from the colonising, physically torturous grip of the RDA's Ambassador Programme.
"They wouldn't last two seconds on Pandora soil," she would always say, her fingers combing slowly through your coal-ink hair while she hummed what she called a war song from the clan you could no longer remember. You retained nothing of your parents, your village, or the life that had been burned away when the RDA raided and massacred your people. Aha'ri remembered. She carried the fragments - small, stubborn facts about the Sarentu, about rivers and songs and the way your mother had once braided fibre - and offered them to you at night like secret rations. Those pieces, and her determined defiance, were what kept you afloat from sinking into complete acceptance of the RDA's version of the world.
The Ambassador Programme, TAP, was presented as a second chance. The founder, John Mercer, spoke of it with the calm certainty of a man who had already decided the future. Earth was dying. Humanity would come to Pandora in full. The two species would merge into a single, harmonious civilisation, resources shared and conflict unnecessary. Your class of ten, and the First Generation of Na'vi envoys, was proof of this concept. You would learn human history, advanced science and engineering, and rigorous military conditioning so that native blood could carry human knowledge. You would become the bridge - Na'vi bodies equipped with human weapons and the expertise to use them. Those who could not adapt, Mercer said, would not survive.
Most of the others accepted it. They had known no other life. According to Mercer, the earlier, more brutish troops of RDA forces had destroyed your clan, and that he and TAP had rescued the remaining children, giving them purpose and a future. You believed enough of it to survive. But Aha'ri never did. She challenged tutors, corrected "facts" mid-lesson, and spoke of the Sky People with a contempt that made some classmates laugh and others scowl as if she'd said something about their mother. You only watched. You admired the unbroken certainty in her, and you wondered, not for the first time, how she could remember so much of your shared past, your heritage, when you held none.
One afternoon, when you were 14 and the day's lessons had ended, Mercer entered the classroom for a special announcement. "It's exciting," he said, "to watch young people learn so quickly about the new way of life for Pandora. I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that next term's curriculum will focus on weaponry and firearms, more action than the business and economics studies you completed this semester." His smile was wide, almost hungry, yearning for the taste of approval from his superiors.
Aha'ri's voice rose from the back of the room, where she had been banished at the start of the year. "Metal and guns are not natural to the way of Eywa, or to Pandora. They might seem strong now, but the Na'vi have reigned here for millions of years. We know this planet. We know how to destroy foreigners, even without metal. You cannot be this stupid." Gasps cut the air. It was not the first time she had called him stupid, but it was the first time she had said it to his face.
Mercer clapped once, hard, and the room fell still. He walked toward her, heels striking the bare tile. Aha'ri did not stop. She stepped up onto her heavy, silver metal chair so that she towered over him. "We are Sarentu," she said, looking around at the rest of you, "and we always will be." Then she began the soft war song she had hummed to you so many nights. One by one, other voices joined, hesitant at first, then stronger, until the classroom held a thin, but defiant melody. Mercer's face smoothed. Something colder settled behind his eyes. He snapped his fingers at the two armed men who had entered with him. A single shot cracked through the humming. One clean bullet through Aha'ri's chest. She dropped where she stood. The light left her ocean-blue eyes before her body finished falling.
"No!" The word tore out of you before you realised you had spoken. Your hand reached toward her across the sudden, absolute silence. All the other times you had stayed silent, watching, waiting, letting Aha'ri carry the defiance for both of you, rushed up at once like a debt you could never repay.
With an arrogant look on his face, Mercer walked slowly back towards the front of the classroom, watching with what you were sure was a snide smirk creeping up on his face as he watched the other students, the students you and your sister had grown up with all these years, those who'd been subjected to her stories, facts and retelling of traditions late at night, clambered towards her now lifeless body. He didn't have to say a word, if he did it would've been a mockery of your grief. His look sent a silent message to all in the room, even beyond the students, 'those who cannot adapt, will not survive.'
But you knew Aha'ri had never been incapable of adapting. She had simply refused. The day of her cold, ruthless murder was the day the last of your divided loyalty died. You had no memories of the clan, no faces of parents, no songs that belonged to you. Everything you knew - language, discipline, the shape of a future - had been given to you by the RDA. They had raised you. They had fed you the story that they alone had pulled the surviving children from the ashes of a destroyed village and given them purpose. For years that debt sat heavy in your chest, keeping you lukewarm, never fully free. Aha'ri's death burned the debt away. Privately, quietly, you turned against them. You would not become one of them.
So you began to plan your escape.
At first it was only you. Then, after witnessing the same brutality turned on one of their own, three more from the class stepped quietly into the secret: Nor, Ri'nela, and Teylan. The next five years passed in careful, invisible increments. You were fifteen when the first cautious conversations happened in the narrow spaces between drills and lights-out. By sixteen you had begun mapping the facility's weaker cameras and the shift patterns of the guards. At seventeen the four of you tested small acts of misdirection: misplaced tools, delayed reports, learning how much scrutiny you could survive. Eighteen and nineteen were spent refining routes, caching what little gear you could risk, and waiting for the single window when security would be stretched thin enough to give you a chance.
At twenty, nearing the end of the senior programme, your plans came to fruition. The night before you were a nervous wreck, clutching at the Songcord Aha'ri left behind. 'Songcord'. Your sister had explained to you a few times what it was, but you never got the grasp of it, or the feeling she displayed of perfect peace and belonging. Still, you held it tightly towards your chest, a silent promise to honour your sister and the cause she fought for, she died for.
D-day began like any other. The same drills, the same grey corridors, the same distilled meals. You had chosen evening rather than full night. Security thickened after dark, but during the dinner shift change the cameras and patrols left a narrow window of lower visibility. That was the gap that granted your freedom.
But another classmate, one of the most loyal to the RDA, Kip'na, had been watching longer than any of you realised. Quiet, compliant, always first to recite Mercer's lessons, she had noticed the too-careful glances, the missing minutes after lights-out, the way Teylan's pack sat heavier than it should. An hour before the window opened she walked stridently toward the duty officer and spoke your names, a child reporting mischief to their parent. By the time you reached the research centre's back entrance, the soldiers were already in position.
The first shots tore the half-light apart. Nor dropped where he stood, the sound sharp and final. Ri'nela dragged him two desperate steps before a second burst folded her against the wall. Teylan shoved the supply pack toward you, trying to draw their fire. The rounds continued forcefully through the air and he disappeared from your line of sight without a cry. You alone broke from the planned line, slamming through a service gate and scrambling along the outer fence as bullets sparked off the metal behind you. You forced an unused maintenance exit open, an area none of you had marked, and squeezed through the narrow gap. Finally, the facility's recycled air fell away....
Pandora air hit your skin and filled your lungs as if it had been waiting for you. The forest stood illuminated in soft bioluminescence, every leaf and trunk edged with quiet light. Above the canopy a wide sunset burned gold and violet, the sky itself acknowledging the moment. You did not stop running. Fear and adrenaline drove you in equal measure. Only once did you glance back toward the facility, then faced forward again. Your legs moved with a freedom the indoor gym had never allowed, the ground uneven and alive beneath your bare, four-toed feet. Only when the first sharp ache registered in your upper arm did you slow. A bullet had grazed you, tearing a shallow but ugly line through skin and muscle. From your studies, you knew the wound was not fatal, yet the pain flared white-hot, like someone had pressed a heated wire against the bone. The supplies had been with Teylan. You had nothing. Crouching among the roots, you used your fingers to work the remaining fragment free, then tore a strip from your own sleeve and bound the arm as tightly as you could. This should do for now, you told yourself, and forced your body upright once more.
The next few days proved harder than you had imagined. The air, the soft undergrowth, the living green of the forest all felt natural against your native Na'vi skin, yet the years inside TAP had left you with almost nothing useful for true Pandorian survival. You carried maps of terrain best suited for unobtainium extraction and a basic list of plants and animals marked hazardous or useful. There was no instruction in reading the forest itself, no practice in the quiet knowing Aha'ri had once called the true gift of being Na'vi. You moved anyway, deeper into the layered world of moss-draped trunks, glowing spores that drifted like slow embers, and vines that pulsed with strong blue light.
Ri'nela's carefully hoarded RDA rations were gone with her. Teylan had carried the medical kit. All that remained were the few grey, tasteless bars Nor used to pass you after every meal he could not finish. You portioned them carefully, one small piece at a time, and cupped river water to your scratched face whenever the current pulled you farther East. Now and then large herd animals appeared between the trees. Broad-backed, six-limbed creatures with sweeping horns patterned in faded greens and oranges, standing motionless as you passed. Around them the flora shifted in impossible colours, some of it stinging your legs with sharp, electric snaps or noxious gases when you brushed too close.
As the days stretched, your steps grew heavier. Your arm throbbed in a low, constant rhythm. You found yourself stopping more often, staring at nothing, the bright world around you somehow flatter than it had been on the first evening. Near dusk on the third day, you settled against the mouth of a shallow cave, too exhausted to push farther. You woke the next morning to a pounding headache and the thin RDA blanket soaked beneath your cheek. A distant animal cry cut through the trees, the sound driving straight into the wound. You bolstered yourself up nonetheless. You had no choice. Mercer would not have stopped his search this soon. You forced your legs forward even as the heat in your arm spread and your vision began to narrow at the edges. By midday, the ground tilted under every step. You recognised the signs of infection, the dirt under your own nails when you had pulled the fragment free, the lack of anything clean to bind it, yet there was no other choice. You kept walking, stumbling.
Late light returned in the same burning gold and violet that had met you on the night of your escape. But this time it felt less like welcome and more like a closing door. Your concentration slipped. You caught yourself on a broad tree root and stayed there longer than you meant to. The arm burned with a deep, wet heat, sweat running into your eyes. The forest sounds came and went in uneven waves. You tried to keep your eyes open, afraid of what might find you if you slept, but your lids grew heavier with each laboured breath. A sharp crack of wood somewhere ahead snapped your head up. Your ears turned toward the sound before the rest of you could follow. One blue figure stood between the trees, then a second slightly behind it. Relief hit so hard it almost buckled your knees.
"Aha'ri!"
The name left you in a bright, broken rush, but the figures did not answer. Your body decided the matter for you. The last clear thing you felt was the soft give of moss under your cheek as your consciousness went out.
What felt like an instant after the dark took you, you awoke. Yet your body lay heavy and aching, as if it had remained still for days. You tried to speak, but even the small muscles of your throat refused. Above you stretched an intricately woven roof of living fibres and vine. You turned your stiff neck as far as it would go, and the memory flashed sharp and sudden: Aha'ri, standing between the trees after five long years. The surprise of it collided with a second, slower thought. Where were you? The walls and ceiling were natural, grown rather than built. The RDA rarely worked with living materials. Everything they made was metal with clean, cutting edges. A comforting aroma of crushed leaves, mint and herbs filled your nose. The silence around you was deep yet gentle, broken only by the distant low pulse of something vast and alive. You rested on thick padding that yielded like moss and cloth together.
When you could finally turn your head slowly to the right, you observed another Na'vi figure. Moving gently like a cradling breeze, decorated in colourful cloths and feathers. Her skin carried the deep blue of the forest people, your kind, and was marked with pale ceremonial patterns that caught the soft light. Her jet-black hair was drawn back from a face lined with authority. Her eyes, golden and steady, studied you without hurry. When she spoke, the first words came in fluid Na'vi, low and melodic. Then her gaze dropped to the torn, grey remnants of your TAP clothing and she switched to careful English.
"You are safe here, child. The wound is healing. Eat."
She held out a carved bowl of soft root paste and fruit. The moment the scent reached you, hunger overrode everything else. You took the bowl with both hands and finished it in quick, ungraceful mouthfuls. A quiet laugh left the woman. The sound was warm, almost private. She watched you with an expression that seemed to look past the present moment, as though she already saw some thread of your path woven into the clan's future. Footsteps approached. Two, what you deciphered as warriors based on your enemy identification training, approached, spears still in hand, their expressions tight with caution. The woman raised one hand and spoke a few firm words in Na'vi. They hesitated, then withdrew. She turned back to you. "Eat more. Drink. Your body needs both."
Your voice came out rough and uncertain. "Where is my sister?" She only shook her head once, gently, and rested a cool hand against your brow. The same deep quiet that had held the chamber earlier settled over you again, heavier this time, and sleep returned.
When you woke once more, it was night. Voices rose from a wide-open space far below, clear enough to follow. You eased yourself to the edge of the upper level and looked down through the woven openings. The great central chamber glowed with scattered soft lights. A tall figure stood among a gathered circle of others. Even from above you recognised him. Jake Sully. In every TAP lesson about the Great Pandora War, he had been named the traitor who turned against his own kind, the human who led the assault that drove the RDA from the moon. Here he spoke with the steady weight of someone the others listened to. They discussed a lone Na'vi found injured near the outer paths, clothing that still carried the nauseating scent of the Sky People and an arm wound treated with their own medicines. One of the warriors who had carried you answered with short, factual words. You remained still in the shadows, listening, the heavy quiet of the great wooden structure pressing around you like a held breath.
Among the circle stood a younger warrior slightly apart from the elders, but standing close to Jake Sully, the leader of this clan. He rose taller than most, the soft biolights sliding across the smooth blue of his shoulders and the strong line of his collarbone. Dark hair fell in careful braids past his shoulders, small beads of bone clicked faintly when he shifted his weight. His face held clean, sharp lines, high cheekbones, a set jaw and eyes the colour of late sunlight through leaves. He looked only a little younger than the men around him, yet every muscle stood stiff and ready, prepared for action at any breath.
As the voices below continued, he lifted his gaze once, almost idly, toward the upper tiers. For a brief moment, those golden eyes found the deeper shadow where you remained hidden. You were startled, a small jolt under the ribs, yet the sight of another face so clearly young among all the older ones held you still. Intrigued, you wondered who he was and what right he had to be there. The look that settled on his face was stern and completely unreadable. He did not speak. He simply held the contact a second longer than you expected, the beads in his braids catching the little light casted form the upper tiers. Then, he returned his attention to the council as if nothing had drawn it away, as if you hadn't locked eyes just now.
After several more days, the old woman judged you strong enough to leave the healing chamber. She led you down the spiralling pathways of the great woven structure until the wide central space opened beneath you. The air felt heavier than before, thick with the scent of woodsmoke and the low tension of Na'vi deep in debate. A circle stood waiting. Jake Sully was at its centre, recognisable at once from Mercer's propaganda. A sharp-eyed woman stayed close to his side. Elders and warriors filled the rest of the places, their expressions closed. Slightly apart, in the same position you had seen from above, stood the young warrior. When your eyes briefly met, the sternness was still there, only closer now. The old woman brought you into the open and stepped back and almost at once the objections began.
"She should not remain," one elder spat, dressed in a regal gown and war paint. "The Sky People do not misplace their weapons. If she is one of theirs, they will come looking."
"It could be a trick," another added, voice tight. "Feigning weakness to bring them straight to us. We have lost too many already."
A third warrior gestured toward your torn grey clothes. "Even the fabric screams their name. Why risk the children for a stranger who arrived half-dead and still smelling of their metal?"
Jake let the words settle before he answered. "I have spoken with the scouts who carried her. The wound was deep and dirty. The fever was not real. She was running from the RDA, not toward us."
"That is what she wants us to believe," the first elder scoffed. "You of all people know how well they lie."
"I do," Jake said, quieter. "I also know what it is to stand where she is standing. I will not send her back into the forest to die or be recaptured. But she will not stay for free."
He looked directly at you. "You will learn to fight as we fight. You will learn the forest the way we know it. And you will give us everything you know about their current weapons, their routines, their weak points. Your knowledge is current. That is the condition."
Murmurs rose again, less sharp than before but still unwilling. Jake waited them out, then turned his head toward the younger warrior.
"My son will teach her." The young man's head lifted a fraction, surprise flickering across his face before it hardened into clear annoyance. His jaw set. The beads in his braids shifted once as he drew a slow breath through his nose. Still, he did not speak. He simply held himself rigid, the refusal visible in every line of his body even as he gave the single, short nod that duty required.
Jake's voice closed the matter. "Begin tomorrow."
The circle began to break apart. You remained where you stood, the old woman's hand light at your elbow, the certainty settling in that survival here would demand more than simply staying alive.
That same day they gave you a small hut on one of the lower outer platforms. It was little more than a woven shelter of living branches and broad leaves, a small opening on one side to the green air of the forest. Inside hung a touch-sensitive, webbed hammock but not much else. The old woman left you with new clothes: a leather mahogany loincloth of flexible hide, a band of woven fibre that covered your chest, attire that was much different, and more skin-revealing than what you were used to. The fabric felt strange against skin that had known only the soft grey cotton of TAP uniforms. You stood for a long time after she left, fingers resting on the unfamiliar material, trying to decide whether you looked like one of them or like a poor copy. You sat on the edge of the hammock and let the quiet settle. Unbidden, the last images of the others returned. You had seen them die, yet some small, stubborn part of you still wondered if any of them had somehow crawled clear. The thought sat heavy. Here, in this place of open air and living wood, you felt the absence of them more sharply than you had while running. You belonged to no one now. The clan below already watched you with closed faces. You heard the arguments. You were the risk they had not wanted.
Early the next morning, a firm knock sounded against the outer frame of your hut. You stumbled awake and stepped into the open. The young warrior stood there, exactly as he had in the circle, shoulders taut, expression impenetrable. Up close his details sharpened and you could make out the clean strength in his arms and the careful order of his braids, a contrast to the puffiness of your face from interrupted sleep and the slight tangle you hadn't had the time or strength to clean up in your waves. He briefly looked you up and down, from the new hide at your hips to the healing line on your arm and the still-unfamiliar way the woven band sat across your chest. You could not tell whether the look was assessment or disapproval. He gave a short tilt of his head.
"Come.", her ordered flatly.
You followed without speaking. He set a brisk pace along the hanging walkways and down a sloping root path that led away from the main structure. The forest closed around you both, thick with the scent of damp earth and flowering vines. After a stretch of silence, he spoke again, still without looking at you. "You will train with the hunters at the hunting grounds. I will show you this place once. After today you will find it yourself. Remember the way." You nodded, eyes on the path. Inside, the quiet irritation in his tone registered clearly. He moved with the easy certainty of someone who had never doubted his place here. Every step looked responsible, controlled, as if the forest itself answered to him. His arrogance sat just beneath the surface, but it was the kind that could prove itself true, one that was earned.
"Keep up," he said once, when your steps lagged on an uneven root. The instruction was short, almost curt. You lengthened your stride at once. Making trouble would serve nothing. The training ground opened suddenly, a wide, packed clearing ringed by high roots and hanging moss. Wooden targets stood at varying distances, some marked with old arrow marks. Racks of spears and bows leaned against the living walls. A few younger Na'vi were already there, their conversations fading as they noticed you. The air smelled of wood, resin, and the faint metallic note of sharpened points. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and finally turned to face you fully, the same cold, immovable look settling over his features.
"Start here. Do not waste my time." You met his eyes and gave another small nod, the only answer you trusted yourself to offer. The space between you felt tight, charged with everything neither of you had chosen.
He moved to a low rack near the edge of the clearing and lifted a bow of flexible, dark wood. Without ceremony, he tossed it toward you. You caught it against your chest, the string still humming faintly from the motion. A small bundle of arrows followed, landing at your feet.
"The clan hunts with these," he said. "You will learn to do the same." He slung his own bow across his shoulder in one smooth motion and started toward the far side of the clearing. Soft laughter and low voices drifted from the small group of younger hunters watching. You felt the weight of their attention like a second skin. You followed, the unfamiliar bow awkward in your grip. His stride was long and sure. After a dozen steps, you spoke clearly, "Can you slow down?"
He did not turn. Did not answer. The path narrowed between high roots and hanging vines. You tried again, a fraction louder.
"I said-" He stopped so abruptly you nearly walked into his back. When he turned the look on his face had turned impatient, his feet stepping closer than necessary. His eyes locked on yours, golden and unblinking.
"You are too slow. You need to keep your pace," he said, each word measured, "or you will not survive here." The sentence landed with the same cold practicality Mercer had once used in the classrooms. For a moment the two voices overlapped in your mind. Something in your chest tightened, then hardened. You met his stare without dropping it.
" I know what I'm doing. I've been through worse." The words came out somewhat defensive, but still flat and final. You stepped past him, shouldering by without touching, and continued along the path, satisfied that the conversation had ended on your terms. There was silence but when you glanced back his expression remained mostly closed, something unreadable sat in the set of his mouth. Possible surprise, possible interest in the fact that the RDA stranger had teeth. The tension stretched thin and sharp. He caught up without comment and took the lead again. The forest opened into a lower, broader space where the undergrowth thinned. In the middle distance, a small group of large, six-limbed herd animals grazed, their hides patterned in mottled greens and browns, heads low among the ferns. Perfect targets for practice. You were still walking with the leftover heat of the exchange when the open ground appeared too suddenly. One more step would have carried you into clear view of the animals. A strong hand closed around your upper arm, the one where your healing wound rested, and pulled you back behind a screen of broad leaves and hanging moss. Pain flared white-hot. You hissed through your teeth and jerked. He released you at once, still not saying a word but an inaudible apology shifting through unsharpened eyes.
He took your other arm instead, guiding you firmly but carefully into position so that you stood in front of him, the foliage still hiding both of you from the herd. His body formed a solid wall at your back. You could feel the heat of him, the controlled rise and fall of his breathing, the faint scent of forest resin and clean skin. He reached around without asking, settled the bow into your hands, and adjusted your grip with brisk, impersonal fingers.
"Feet here. Elbow high. Sight along the arrow. The heart sits behind the front shoulder." His voice remained cool, instructional, stripped of anything softer. Yet his closeness to your warm, injured skin made the air around you feel narrower. You drew the string as he directed. The arrow flew, missed the nearest animal by a clear handspan, and buried itself into the dirt. The creature raised its head, ears flicking, but did not flee. A quiet sound left the young warrior, something between a breath and a humourless note.
"Again," he commanded. "And this time actually aim for the Sturmbeest." 'Obviously, smart-ass.' You thought to yourself. The session stretched on until the light through the forest canopy faded. He moved you from one patch of cover to the next, following the same sequence: settle the feet, raise the bow, draw, sight, release. Each time the arrow flew wide or struck too low or buried itself harmlessly into the ground. His expression never shifted far from cool dissatisfaction.
"Again."
You collected the arrows in silence and returned to the starting place. The muscles in your shoulders burned. The healing arm protested every full draw. Still you kept at it. Once, after a particularly poor shot that startled the nearest animal into a short trot, he let out a quiet, cutting breath. "You handle the bow like it is a stick you found on the ground." The words landed, but you only nocked another arrow and lifted the bow once more. He watched for a moment longer, then stepped into the open himself. In a single fluid motion, he drew, held, and released. The arrow crossed the clearing in a clean arc and struck exactly behind the front shoulder of a grazing beast. The animal dropped without a sound. He retrieved the arrow with the same effortlessness, his perfect shot requiring no comment. A few times more he came up behind you. His chest brushed your back. One hand adjusted the angle of your elbow, the other guided your fingers on the string. The heat of him soaked through the thin strip of leather hanging at your lower spine. You could feel every controlled breath he took, the solid strength in the arms that framed yours. Each correction was precise and impersonal.
When he finally called an end the light had already begun to thin. He started back towards the main site and you followed in silence, body heavy, arms trembling from the repeated draws. As the path climbed and the impossibly large 'HomeTree' structure came into view, the shifting light caught a pale, ridged scar high on his back, just where the muscle met the shoulder blade. The mark of a bullet that had torn through and healed imperfectly. You stared at it while you walked, wondering how someone who still looked so young could already carry a wound so deep. He never looked back. When the outer platforms of the village appeared he simply stopped, gave you one last unreadable glance, and spoke, "I am not your babysitter. You know the path now. Use it. Meet me at the same time tomorrow." He turned back, letting you find the rest of the way back alone.
The borrowed bow felt heavier than it should have. Somewhere above, the soft lights of the HomeTree glowed. You stood for a moment longer on the path, the forest quiet around you, and felt the full weight of everything Aha'ri had promised settling into the space where belonging still refused to take root.
Chapter Two
Your first few days with the 'Omatikaya' clan, as the old lady who first greeted you, the 'Tsahik' taught you, blurred into a rhythm of ache and quiet resolve. Although the young warrior had told you to remember your own way to the hunting grounds, you'd often wait, hiding in your hut until he passed by, tethered behind him before arriving for your basic skills session. He never greeted you and moved at a pace that left your lungs burning before the sun had fully cleared the canopy. The forest paths became familiar only through repetition - the same root that caught your ankle, the low branch that always scraped your shoulder, the same packed clearing where he made you lift the bow until your arms shook and the string bit into your fingers. He rarely spoke beyond short commands. Draw. Hold. Release. Again. When the light faded he still said again. You returned each evening with new scrapes across your knees and elbows, thin lines of blood already drying, and a body so heavy that the hammock felt like the only solid thing left in the world.
The wound on your arm closed cleanly under the Tsahik's careful attention. The skin knitted smooth and tight, leaving only a pale ridge that no longer pulled when you drew the string. The food settled well with your body as well. Bowls of warm vegetable soup, bright alien fruit that burst sweet against your tongue, strips of roasted meat still fragrant with forest herbs. After years of grey TAP rations, the flavours felt almost shocking. You ate every portion as if it might be taken away, and for those few minutes the constant low hum of not belonging quietened. It never quietened for long. The Na'vi your age watched you with open curiosity that quickly turned to amusement. Soft laughter followed when you went off path or missed an arrow shot. Whispers drifted across the platforms at night, too low to catch every word but clear enough in tone. Sky-people clothes. Sky-people smell. The one the leader's son is forced to drag through the forest. Aha'ri had spoken of belonging as something already written in the blood. Here the blood seemed to count for very little.
Still, you rose each morning determined to prove the whispers wrong, and to prove him wrong most of all. The coldness in his eyes had become a challenge you refused to lose. One day Jake Sully brought you to a region further out from the main living areas, where several humans worked among the Na'vi. One of them, a lean man with fascinated eyes and a ready smile, introduced himself as Norm Spellman. They were scientists who chose to remain after the war. They spoke of old RDA systems, signal patterns and encrypted channels that still flickered on the edges of their instruments. You listened, before quietly correcting a frequency range they had marked as obsolete. You sketched the newer lockout protocols Mercer had drilled into every TAP cohort. You showed them which handheld tools could still force a maintenance hatch and which ones would trigger an immediate alert. Norm's expression shifted to sharp attention, occasionally exchanging looks with Jake, as if he was impressed by what you had to offer. The others leaned closer. For the first time since arriving, you felt useful in a way that did not require perfect aim or perfect silence.
The young warrior stood at the edge of the base the entire time, arms folded, watching. He said nothing. When the discussion ended he simply turned and walked ahead of you down the path, never beside, always a few strides beyond reach. Yet you caught him glancing back once, the usual sternness tempered by something quieter, the knowledge you carried pointing him to your true utility to the clan, whether he wanted it to or not.
The next morning you did not meet him at the training clearing. The path climbed instead, steeper, the air thinning as the great woven structure fell away below. You emerged onto a high ledge of living stone and root, open to the sky. Mountain banshees, known as 'Ikran', wheeled in slow arcs overhead, their wings catching the light in flashes of blue and violet and deep green. The landing was a broad, wind-scoured platform marked by old claw scars and the sharp scent of ozone and feathers. He stopped at the edge and turned. For once he did not immediately look impatient.
"You will choose one," he said. "Or it will choose you. The bond is tsaheylu. Kuru to kuru. Until that moment it will try to kill you. That is how you know it is yours.", he held up the tendrils at the end of his braid, offering a rare moment of clarity.
Your face must have shown exactly the horror you felt, as he laughed. The sound was short and genuine, and for the first time you saw him bare his teeth in something other than a flat line. The sternness eased, his honey eyes lit with brief, reluctant amusement. The change made him look almost approachable, before his usual control slid back into place. You found your voice. "How old were you? When you bonded the first time."
"Six." He said it simply, as if the number required no further explanation. He offered nothing more. The Ikran descended in a rush of wings and snapping jaws. You stood where he told you, heart slamming against your ribs, whilst the great creatures landed and folded their wings with restless, predatory grace. One of them fixed on you at once: a lean female with dark blue markings that ran like rivers down her neck and a deep anchor at her chest that flared when she hissed. She came at you fast. Claws scraped stone. Teeth snapped close enough that you felt the hot rush of her breath. You stumbled back, caught yourself, and moved the way the training had taught you to move when something larger and angrier wanted you dead. She circled. You circled. The ledge felt suddenly small. When the opening came you did not think. You lunged, caught the side of her neck, and dragged your own kuru free. The moment the neural tendrils met, the world cracked open.
Sensation flooded in, the sharp clarity of her vision, the wind already mapped across every membrane of her wings, the deep, instinctive hunger for open sky. Your own body felt distant for a heartbeat, then violently present again as her strength poured through the link. Muscles you did not know you had answered. Balance shifted. The fear did not vanish, it simply became something you could ride. She snapped at the air once more, then stilled, sides heaving, the bond settling into a fierce, thrumming awareness that was neither fully you nor fully her. You stayed on your knees longer than you meant to, one hand still buried in the warm, leather feeling of her neck, lungs dragging in air that tasted of high ancestral winds. When you looked up, the young warrior's face had shifted by the smallest degree. The usual stern line of his mouth had eased. Something like quiet satisfaction sat in the set of his shoulders, gone almost before you could be certain it was there. Around the ledge, the watching Na'vi had fallen quieter. The soft laughter had stopped. Their stares now carried a thin edge of respect.
The moment did not last.
"Up," he called, voice suddenly sharp. "You must take flight. Now." The words jolted you. The pride contracted into fresh shock. Before you could answer he was already moving. In one smooth motion, the warrior swung up behind you onto the same Ikran, the great creature shifting under the added weight but holding steady through the bond. His chest pressed solid against your back. Both of his hands came down over yours on the natural ridges of her neck, gripping tight, skin warm and tough against your own. "Lean with her," he said close to your ear. "Do not fight the turn."
Then the ledge fell away.
The first drop stole the air from your lungs. Wind roared past your ears. The ground became a distant green blur and the sky opened in every direction at once. Terror and exhilaration crashed together so you could not separate them. Your stomach lurched, fingers locked under his. He made a low grunt as he corrected your angle with a firm pressure of his hands, guiding the ikran into a wide, climbing arc. The bond flooded you with her fierce joy in the height. For a heartbeat you forgot to be afraid. A sound tore out of you, half-scream, half-laugh, raw and bright with the sudden freedom of open air. You had never moved like this. Never felt the world drop so far beneath your feet while your body remained perfectly held by wings and wind and the solid presence at your back. You leaned forward on the Ikran's back as the young warrior pressed close behind, his chest solid against your back, one of his legs braced along the outside of yours so that the hard line of his thigh rubbed the back of your own with every shift of the great wings. His arms reached around you, toned and warm, the muscles flexing against the sides of your chest as he let you survey Pandora's landscape. The gale was strong enough that when he needed to glance forward to check your grip, he had no choice but to lean in, cheek brushing the side of your head and the sensitive skin of your neck, breath warm against your ear for the brief moments the brush lasted. You did not see the wide, startled smile that crossed his face, nor the quiet laugh that escaped him before he mastered it again. You only felt the shift of his chest and the continued steady guidance of his hands. You began to copy the rising whoops you had heard other riders make, the sound breaking into more laughter as the Ikran banked hard and the forest heights wheeled below. He did not tell you to stop. The tension that usually sat between your bodies loosened by a fraction, the flight demanded cooperation, and for these few minutes he gave it without the usual cold distance.
You circled back toward the landing in a long, descending spiral. More figures had gathered on the stone platform. One of them stepped forward the moment the Ikran's claws touched down. A younger male, leaner, with an easy stance and a face that carried clear human traces. Five fingers on each hand. Distinct eyebrows. Features sharper and more finely cut than the pure Na'vi around him.
"Neteyam!" He called, grinning wide. The name landed in your mind like a stone dropped into still water. Neteyam. You repeated it once, silently, while the two of them reached out and clasped forearms in a quick, familiar motion, shoulders bumping. The stern young warrior who had spent a week making you repeat the same movements until dark was suddenly smiling, openly, carelessly, at the other boy. The carefree expression sat strangely on a face you had only ever seen closed. The newcomer turned to you next, still smiling. "So you're the one who's been keeping my brother busy. Not bad for a first flight."
The warmth in his voice was immediate and unforced. You felt some of the usual caution in your posture ease. You looked down humbly, surprised by the sudden compliment and his friendliness, earning a soft laugh from him. "You know..you're the first Na'vi he's ever had to train. You should've seen the stupid grin he had on his face out there.", he added.
Neteyam shot his brother a look that was half warning, half reluctant amusement. "Lo'ak, skawxng!"
Lo'ak's eyes flicked between the two of you, clearly enjoying the contrast before playfully shoving his brother aside. Neteyam's expression shifted again, but the residual ease of the flight and the easy presence of his brother kept a trace of lightness around his mouth as he muttered something too low for you to catch. Lo'ak only grinned wider and gave you another nod of open congratulations before the gathered riders began to drift closer, voices rising with questions and commentary about the outsider and her new Ikran.
After the landing, Lo'ak's easy warmth settled into something steady. You spent more time with him over the next few weeks, his footprint quickly falling into step beside you on the lower platforms, tossing casual challenges, laughing when you answered his pathetic questions with clever quips. He was boyish in the best and most irritating ways, confident to the point of arrogance, quick to flash that sharp, pretty-boy grin. Yet the arrogance never turned on you. Where Neteyam's distance felt like judgement, Lo'ak's felt like comfort. You found yourself watching the way light caught the angles of his face, enjoying the banter more than you expected. Finally, one person in the clan who did not merely tolerate your presence but seemed to prefer it. The rest of the village took longer. Whispers and side-eye glances followed you through the first weeks. You felt the gap keenly, the sense that whatever blood you shared, the softer arts of being a Na'vi woman still sat beyond your reach. In those moments, Lo'ak's uncomplicated friendship became a quiet refuge.
Everywhere else you refused to stay small. On the training grounds and in the weekly hunts you matched the warriors stride for stride, then began to outpace them. Arrows flew truer. Footing grew surer. Tactical suggestions offered to Norm and the scientists - updated RDA protocols, weak points in newer patrol patterns - earned sharp nods and quick implementation. Respect arrived in uneven pieces, but it came nonetheless. Neteyam remained the same. He was still harsh, critical, still walking ahead rather than beside you, yet the silence between commands had begun to fill with teasing and fighting words.
"Lucky shot.", he called after witnessing another one of your successful Sternbeest shots.
"Lucky is what you call it when you can't do better," you returned, not quite smiling. It was loud enough that the others in the group glanced over, smirks pulling at their faces.
Neteyam scoffed and drew up his bow and arrow again. You moved closer, shoving his shoulder as you passed by, not hard, but deliberate. He barely moved, yet the brief contact sparked something bright and competitive in his eyes. He shoved back, controlled and exact, just enough to make you take a step, but clearly holding back from the force you pushed into him. The satisfaction that flickered across his face was gone in an instant, but you had seen it. Riling you had become a quiet sport he was winning more often than not.
Strategy sessions with Norm and the scientists turned into regular battlegrounds. You laid out updated RDA patrol timings, Neteyam cutting across your words without hesitation. "That window closed six months ago. They changed the rotation."
"Then the new rotation still leaves the eastern sensor net exposed between the second and third sweep," you answered, a piercing look in your eye. "Unless you have fresher numbers than the ones I lived under."
Jake's voice would eventually cut through the rising heat. "Enough. Both of you." The two of you stepped back with matching frustrated jaws, yet later, when the maps were cleared, you sometimes caught Neteyam watching you with an expression that was no longer purely critical. The clashes had begun to carry an undercurrent of shared enjoyment, each of you measuring how much further the other could be pushed. One evening after a long session of drills, he found you still on the training ground, repeating a footwork sequence you had not yet perfected.
"You're going to wear a hole in the earth," he remarked.
"Focus on your own holes, creep."
He smiled, internally asking himself where you came up with such strange comebacks. "Only if you stop your chicken-dancing on my trading grounds." You turned, ready with another retort, but found him already walking away, still ahead of you, always maintaining an air of distance.
The ranks were shifting and the competition had narrowed to a single point: him. And every time Neteyam's eyes met yours across a clearing or a council circle, the old, cold distance carried a new, unspoken current neither of you had yet named. Beating the other warriors no longer mattered as much as overriding Neteyam in every possible way. When the chance came for a private hunt, just the two of you, no audience, you both took it without discussion. The one who returned with the greater share would hold the quiet victory until the next challenge.
You moved deeper into the forest than the usual routes allowed, the playful edge of rivalry sharpening with every successful stalk. He would signal a perch in the high roots. You would claim a better angle moments later. A low sound of shared, competitive breath passed between you when a large Hexapede drifted close. The trees grew denser. The familiar markers of the safety zone fell away behind you without either of you fully acknowledging the moment they disappeared. The first Viperwolf announced itself with a sound like wet stone grinding against bone. You turned too late. The creature exploded from the undergrowth, six limbs, lean and corded, jaws split wide to show off its serrated teeth, eyes reflecting the low light in flat, hungry discs. Its breath hit your face in a hot wave. Instinct drove you backwards, claws raked the air where your throat had been. A second shape flickered at the edge of vision, then a third. It was a pack.
Fear arrived complete and physical. Your pulse became a single continuous roar. Every drill, every careful lesson dissolved into the raw knowledge that these animals were built to end whatever they caught. You loosed an arrow that struck the lead wolf high in the shoulder; it barely slowed. Neteyam was already moving. His first shot took the second animal through the neck. The third closed on your flank. You dropped, rolled, felt the snap of teeth pass close enough to tug a strand of your hair. Neteyam reached you in three strides, shoulder slamming into the creature's side and driving it off balance long enough for you to drive a blade upward. Hot blood sprayed across your arm. The remaining wolves circled, low and coordinated, waiting for the next opening. You fought back to back for what felt like an eternity, the forest reduced to snapping jaws and the wet sound of impact. Just as the largest survivor gathered itself for another rush, a shadow cut across the sky. Jake's Leonopteryx dropped through the leaves in a violent rush of wings. Strong hands seized both of you, hauling upward as claws closed on empty air. You locked your arms around Neteyam's waist, his own grip fastened firmly around his father's forearm. The ground fell away in a sickening swing.
They landed hard on a nearby cliff ledge of pale stone. Jake dismounted in one motion, expression carved from something colder than anger. The wind at this height was sharp and clean, carrying none of the blood-scent from below.
"You both know the boundary," he lectured, voice low but booming. "You know why it exists. What were you doing that far out?" You opened your mouth, an explanation and apology already forming, but Neteyam suddenly stepped in front of you before the first word left your tongue.
"It is my fault, sir. I take full responsibility."
Everything about the exchange felt familiar in the worst way. You had seen the same desolate obedience inside TAP, the same careful blankness when a superior's disappointment landed. Jake's gaze stayed on his son for a long moment. Whatever passed between them did not need volume to cut deep.
"You're not a kid anymore," Jake said, each word measured. "You do not get to be reckless and call it leadership. Take her back. On foot. I will speak with you later." He mounted without another glance and the Shadow carried him away in a hard beat of wings. Silence settled over the ledge, broken only by the wind and the distant calls of the forest far below. Neteyam started down the path at once, walking ahead as always. His shoulders were rigid, his pace tight with thoughts he did not share. After a stretch of quiet, you found your voice.
"Thank you." A pause. "But why did you speak for me?"
He did not slow. "Do not read into it."
The coldness in the answer snapped something loose - of course he was still mean, misunderstood Neteyam. You closed the distance, caught his shoulder, and pulled him around with more force than you had used in any of your previous shoves. His eyes met yours, "Why do you hate me so much?", you finally asked.
The question hung between you, raw and direct. For a moment he looked as if he might refuse to answer. Then the words came, loud and clear, stripped of every earlier taunt. "The Sky People destroyed more than you understand. They massacred my friends. My people. My family!", his voice was nearing a yell, but he pulled back. "They left scars that cannot heal." His hand moved once, almost unconsciously, toward the old bullet mark high on his chest. "I nearly joined them. So forgive me if I do not trust what comes from the RDA. You still carry their shape, their smell. Even when you try not to.", his voice faltered. He gave you one last look, mouth scrunched, as if he had more to say. But he looked away, turning around and continuing down the path without waiting.
You stepped back. Anger still burned under your ribs, but something heavier settled beside it: understanding, unwanted and incomplete. "Ugh!", you grunted loudly, expressing your frustration fully with your body. It was half because he'd blamed you for something you had no part, or choice, in. But also partly because he was right. The walls he kept began to look like survival. You remained on the ledge a moment longer, the wind crystallising your thoughts, the weight of Neteyam's words rearranging each interaction that had come before, still guarded, but, at last, explained.
After the evening meal, you sat in the low light of your hut, the day's words turning over and over. Annoyance rose first: sharp, familiar, the memory of every cold dismissal, every time he had looked at you as if you were something that had tracked dirt onto clean ground even after you had matched him shot for shot, stride for stride. Then the anger thinned, accepting that the losses he named were not abstract. The clan's scars were older and deeper than your arrival. You understood the instinct to protect what remained. Understanding did not erase the sting of being treated as the threat. In the privacy of the small space, you let the unspoken answers spill out under your breath, replaying the cliff-edge exchange with the freedom of no audience.
"I'm sorry your people suffered-"
No.
It wasn't your fault.
Maybe, "You do not get to punish me for the triggers I never pulled!"
The words felt good in the quiet. Cathartic. You shaped sharper versions, colder ones, the kind of perfect responses that only arrived hours too late. By the time the bioluminescent lights outside had dimmed to their brightest glow you had decided: tomorrow, early, you would find Neteyam alone and say the necessary parts out loud. His pain was clear and justified. Your right not to be treated as disposable was equally clear. You rose before the first real light. The village still slept. Neteyam, you knew, would already be moving. He was always moving. The perfect soldier the RDA had once tried to manufacture in TAP classrooms, only refined by true loyalty instead of fear. A dream of discipline given blue skin and quiet authority. You followed the faint path that led toward the communal bathing showers fed by a low waterfall near the river. Steam rose in the cool air. The sound of soft disturbances in the waterfall stream suggested he was already there. You did not want to wait for the later crowds. You only meant to confirm it was him before calling out.
You stepped closer and peered inside from a high, hidden perch.
He stood under the fall with his back partly turned, water slithering down the long lines of muscle across his shoulders and the sharp cut of his waist. The scar you had noticed weeks ago sat high on his chest, deep against the forest blue of his skin, a raised ridge that caught the early light. Water traced the defined planes of his abdomen, the powerful length of his thighs, the natural strength of him. He moved with the same controlled but fluid way he brought to everything else, scooping water over his braids, running both hands down his arms, entirely unaware of any audience. For a long moment you could not look away. The sight settled low in your body, unexpected and insistent, a heat that had nothing to do with the steam.
Just as you were about to look away, the feeling of the stone and moss resting beneath your feet grounding you back to reality, you were pulled in by Neteyam's next, unexpected movements. His strong, capable hands drifted down to his bare penis, wrapping his three fingers and thumb around its length. You'd never seen one before. In the cabins at TAP, of course you and the other recruits would gossip about naked bodies, but it was never a topic discussed for long. His was longer than it was thick, perfectly erect when in his large hands but swaying slightly to the left when left on its own. The tip glowed a beautiful indigo-violet and it was where Neteyam focused the end of his strokes before returning to the base again, letting his fingers graze his plump, healthy testicles as he slid his hand back up his shaft. He started at a moderate pace, head down and the stroking movement repetitive. Within just a few minutes his glute and thigh muscles began to clench, his broad back brushing the stone back of the shower. Faster and deeper his strokes became, the faint sound of skin slapping as he concentrated on staying upright.
Unknowingly, your hand grazed your soft mouth, watching in awe as a thick current of blood overwhelmed your cheeks. His hand, usually so steady and precise, moved with a deliberate, searching rhythm. Water cascaded with a steady pattern, white noise that did little to muffle the low, guttural sounds that began to emanate from his slightly agape, sapphire lips. You watched, a knot of unexpected sensation tightening in your stomach and flurrying down your hips. His fingers, thin yet strong, traced the contours of his own flesh, his movements growing more urgent with each passing second. A quiet, grunt, deep from his stomach, punctuated the drumming water. Another followed, so unlike his usual controlled demeanour that it thrilled your senses even more. His silhouette was a study in raw tension and desire. Neteyam threw his head back slightly, eyes gently shut, lost in imagination and his geometric features contorted in a private agony. A dark, almost primal intensity settled over him. The air grew thick not just with humidity, but with a palpable sense of release, a tide that was mercilessly pulling him under. A purple flush crept up his neck, visible even through the water, and his jaw tightened, a muscle ticking furiously before he let out a desperate, almost pained moan, followed by several more guttural grunts. This release was accompanied by a faucet flow of thick white liquid from the glowing head of his penis, cascading down harmoniously with the moving water that caressed his skin. He stood, head down, completely undone, but as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, for a few moments the burdens of his future as Olo'eyktan were out of his mind.
You startled yourself, pulse quick, and stepped back into the thicker cover of the leaves. The scene had sparked a flicker of something akin to arousal, but it was quickly overshadowed by the potent intrigue of witnessing this hidden part of his being. It was a powerful, unguarded moment, and the knowledge of it settled in your mind. A secret you would carry, that belonged only to the quiet of this morning. A secret you'd hold over his head to finally stop his tyranny over your stay in the Omatikaya clan. You turned and made your way back through the still-sleeping platforms, steps light, expression carefully blank, as if you had never left your hammock at all.
