synopsis: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? You're not sure if that's true but you have to believe in something. Finally managing to escape the corporation that owns your body for the second time, you have to face danger, tough situations and even tougher decisions. Just how well will you fit in this entirely new world?
tags: 18+, adult content, a/b/o themes, fem!reader, fem gendered pronouns and pet names, no use of y/n, recom!reader, age difference (but reader is in her 20’s), Tsu'tey is very much alive, and so is Neteyam, eventual smut, slow burn, major character death, graphic descriptions of everything, more will be added as the story develops – always check each chapter for more specific tags!
an: posted on ao3 as well. updates will be very inconsistent so please bear with me.
minors do not interact. ageless and empty blogs will be blocked.
tags for the chapter: major character death, graphic descriptions of death, blood (obviously), lmk if I missed anything else
an: also on ao3. the prologue is quite short and tbh so far I haven't decided how long I'll make the future chapters. as always, if I missed any tags or if you find any grammatical errors or typos pls let me know. also, anybody who reads this, please, hold me accountable for writing and posting next chapters
minors do not interact. age-less and empty blogs will be blocked.
Working for the RDA was the biggest mistake of your life. This, you had realised almost as soon as you stepped a foot on Pandora. It took you a signed NDA exactly three hours after landing on the planet to understand that something shady must be going on. As you would soon learn, shady didn’t even cover it.
You weren’t naive. You had expected bad blood to be here, naturally. Humans were trying to make this planet their wallet and given their track record, it was no surprise they weren’t exactly gentle about it. With this in mind, still nothing could have prepared you for the countless bodies you had to watch on screen and in person drop before you, though. Nothing could’ve prepared you for staring into the big, yellow eyes of the Na’vi you were pulling the trigger on, some obviously way too young to be fighting in these battles. Or picking up the remains of your colleagues, sometimes even friends, and being ordered to burn them on a pile.
In for a penny, in for a pound clearly didn’t apply here. You were hardly in for the damn penny, but when the other shoe dropped and you learned about the pound? Hell no. But there was no legal way for you to be rid of your contract and other additional things you’d signed.
Only one.
In this line of work, only a couple of people live long enough to earn titles and shining badges.
You weren’t one of them.
The Samson you and a part of your team had rode in during one of the many battles you fought was hit by multiple arrows and went crashing down to the ground. It was truly by pure chance that your fragile, human body had survived the crash. When you had come to moments later, your lungs were burning and your vision was blurred. Your breathing felt manual and the air filling your lungs was as heavy as lead.
You attempted to get up, but crumbled back down on the ground seconds later, coughing like an old smoker, pain filling every cell in your body. Some of your ribs were definitely broken.
You felt disoriented, your eyes having troubles focusing on a single target. Not that it would be even possible through all the smoke, though. Trying as hard as you could, almost gulping air at this point, you just couldn’t seem to get enough of it into your lungs. That’s when you noticed it – the tiniest crack in your mask.
Shit.
You started crawling. Not in any particular direction. You didn’t even know where you were trying to crawl. Your mind wasn’t clear enough to make decisions like that at this point.
“Lee!” You tried to yell at your squadmate, your friend, but your voice came out more silent and raspy than you anticipated.
“Lee!”
There was no way he would be able to hear you over the war cries and gunfire. If he was alive.
You rested your head on the ground, some green leaves tickling your skin on the sides of your face where the cracked mask wasn’t covering it.
You could feel it. All of it. Your ribs, untethered and poking into your flesh and organs, the warm, sticky feeling of your own blood on the back of your left thigh, the bruises forming right underneath your skin, the sweat gathering on your upper lip, the tingling in your fingers. If you were more conscious, you would’ve thought how strange that is. How receptive your body was of all the sensations, all the pain, while your mind was so hazy. You could hear them, the sounds, but they were faded. In the background. Even the silence of your earpiece. It felt like falling asleep while watching a movie.
You raised your head again, the movement costing you way too much energy. Bracing yourself mentally, you willed your entire body to move. Muscle by muscle, joint by joint, until you were standing. Multiple groans and whimpers unashamedly left your lips while doing so.
“Lee!”
You let out a grating scream when something collided with your left shoulder at an incredible speed and sent you right back to the ground. You didn’t attempt to stand up again. The pain was excruciating and rendered you immobile.
It didn’t take a turn of your head to the left to see what hit you. You were able to see it just fine with your head staring at the sky that was just peeking through the slowly dissipating waves of smoke. The thick wooden shaft was pointed towards the clouds with the colourful feathers adorning the end of it and stretching to the sides, creating this morbid flagpole that signalled right where your lying body could be found.
You could swear that you heard hooves nearing you, but it could have been your imagination. Your blood, that was slowly being poisoned by the toxic air, was flowing out of you at speed that made your already hazy mind even more dim. Your breathing was shallow, each breath feeling like a sandpaper to your windpipe.
You closed your eyes.
Now that all you were seeing was black, you could hear the sounds clearer. The gunfire from humans, the responsive individual war cries of the natives somewhere in the distance. An explosion. The sounds of pain leaving your own lips.
You felt tears gather at the outer corners of your eyes and roll down the sides of your face, being stopped by your mask.
Paradoxically to your situation, you felt at peace. Maybe it was you realising that this would be the end.
There was a shadow that covered your face suddenly, stopping the rays of the star that were keeping your cooling skin warm. You swallowed around nothing, your mouth and throat dry as a desert, and opened your eyes again.
The shadow crouched down right next to you, their hand resting on your left shoulder, right above the arrow.
You narrowed your eyes in order to focus them better.
A male Na’vi warrior was squatting right next to your body. His large blue frame and war paint would’ve scared you in any other situation.
A yell tore from your throat when his other hand grabbed the wooden shaft of the arrow right above your flesh and pulled it out of you quickly. You were crying now, tears freely streaming down your skin as the blood pooled in the puncture wound for a second before it flowed out underneath your body.
You opened your eyes to look again at the warrior who was still crouching next to you, looking at you. You thought of all the times you wished you could see a Na’vi from up close, really look at them. Now that you finally had the opportunity, your mind wasn’t able to comprehend any other distinguishable features other than the big, yellow eyes.
The warrior’s fingers on your shoulder twitched a little. To your surprise, you felt this slight movement not only on your shoulder, but also in your palm. Shifting your head to the left, you could see your own hand gripping his.
You have never felt more small and fragile in your life. Dying on Pandora’s ground, your four-fingered hand holding the three-fingered one of your killer. His skin was so much thicker and warmer to touch than yours. Or maybe you were just getting cold.
Your body was doing things now without you actually deciding to do them. At least that was what it felt like. You only became aware you had closed your eyes when you no longer could see the piercing amber eyes nor the dark blue skin.
You felt a huge lump in your throat. You would’ve coughed if it weren’t for the unbearable pain spreading throughout your body. Each second it surprised you how worse the pain could get. Your breath got caught in your throat.
This was it, you realised.
You opened your eyes one last time, wanting to see the amber once more. Compared to the all encompassing smoke that made everything grey and the deafening sounds all around you, the amber felt like a safe haven. It felt calming.
The Na’vi warrior stayed long enough with you to watch the life leave your body in the midst of a battle. As you breathed your last breath, the thoughts filling your mind were those of gratitude.
