❰❰ TILT ❱❱ sender tilts the receiver’s chin with their hand / for ney!
varang does not care for the will of eywa. she does not consider her injuries as a part of the all-mother's plan, a kind of vengeance, a kind of retribution that the planet itself has wrought upon her.
this is what neytiri sees, when she witnesses varang attempting escape, only to find herself with the cuts and bruises of a failed attempt for autonomy. she could not ride the ilu. she could not find a way to escape the metkayina's large, isolated island. to flee was pointless.
but varang persists. and, with each defiant act, neytiri's patience becomes deeper, more stubborn, as she sees varang more and more. she tells herself that she can feel the great mother's presence, here; it feels like when her family was still whole; when her faith was not tested. she trusts that feeling. needs it.
she trusts it, as she deftly washes the blood from varang's ashed skin. she will embody eywa, the caregiver. eywa, the healer. eywa, the just.
defiantly, and perhaps as a means of some semblance of control, varang's hand rises up. neytiri pauses, stills. her pale fingers touch neytiri's skin, the tip of her pointed chin, as solid and soft as a feather.
it is a moment. a moment that stretches on for much more than a moment. and then neytiri prods at varang's bruise, forces the other woman to withdraw, to wince.
"if that is your thank you," neytiri grimaces only slightly, stern, but with glimmering eyes that waver, "do better."
