Ashes Do Not Pray (Part 2)
Neteyam X Mangkwang! Reader
tags/warnings: unintended mating bond, enemies to lovers, childhood friends to enemies, graphic depictions of violence, war, blood and injury detail, death of a parent, loss of family member, loss of faith , heavy angst, sexual tension, sexual content, yearning, grief, psychological torture (via kuru).
Note: The protagonist has a specific backstory and personality, but is written as a Reader-Insert (Y/N).
Part1
Ashes Do Not Pray (Part 2)
Mission after mission, Neteyam looked for your trace. And mission after mission, he was reminded of his failure. Your traces had faded over the years, and so had the hope of finding you.
He was half relieved and half terrified that he had not found you yet. He was afraid to find you as a lifeless body.
Does she have a warm shelter?
Does she have fresh fruits to eat?
Does she know how to patch herself up?
Does she know how much I need her here, by my side?
His mother had ordered him not to follow you on the day you left. She said you were a lost cause and that you would only drag him and the village down with your presence. Neteyam, ever the Golden Boy that he was and still is, had listened to his mother. And that was his biggest regret. Had he followed you, you might still be lingering at the edge of the Omatikaya village, breaking record after record of pebble juggling. You would probably have reached a thousand by now. You would probably have passed the Iknimaya with him. You would probably be pranking him with new inventions. Had he chosen to be himself, just Neteyam, instead of his mother’s son, instead of the Golden Child for just once, he would still have you.
“It is a new kind of mission. Escort the Windtrader’s gondolas.”
Focus, Neteyam, he chided himself. You are a full-fledged warrior now. Your people are relying on you.
“Escort the windtraders?”
The Tlalim clan had never really asked for the Omatikaya’s aid before. They only asked for trades.
“Why do they need an escort? They have never needed it before, so why now?” Neteyam asked his senior.
“The Mangkwang raiders have grown more vicious,” Tarsem, the senior warrior, answered.
“How so?” Neteyam pressed further as his brow ridge tightened.
“The Tlalim did not give us the specifics,” Tarsem said as he rubbed his forehead.
“Why are they being difficult even though they are asking us for aid?” Another warrior spoke up.
Tarsem sighed heavily. “None of those who witnessed the Mangkwang raid made it out alive.”
“Oh, finally a real threat? Good.” One of the younger warriors grinned and gripped his spear. “I was getting bored with these boring missions. Finally, a real challenge.”
“And none of the corpses have kurus,” Tarsem finished coldly.
The grin vanished from the young warrior’s face instantly. The briefing circle fell into dead silence. Dread was visible on everyone’s faces, even the senior warriors. Neteyam’s eyes darkened.
To have one’s kuru cut was worse than death.
“Neteyam, you are one of the best we have. Good beyond your years. I am assigning you to back the senior up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is incredibly dangerous, so you should focus on being the lookout. Let your seniors take care of the main part.”
“…Understood.”
He hated it. He hated that those seniors treated him like his life mattered more than other warriors just because he was Toruk Makto’s son, just because he was the Olo’eyktan’s successor. He wanted to serve the People, but they kept him on a short leash, always relegating him to the safety of the perimeter while others did the bleeding.
“Get enough sleep. We dispatch before the sun rises.”
.
.
.
He had been on his ikran for two nights now and was heading into the third. The caravan was moving toward the Cloud Mountain. So far, there was no sign of anything suspicious. He rested his eyes for a moment. The main danger zone would be when the caravan had to go through the strait near the volcano. That was where those savages, the Mangkwang, resided. He gazed at the other warriors who were resting. He sighed as he closed his eyes again. He needed to conserve his energy for the big fight.
Thwiip-thud.
His eyes shot open.
Arrow? Where is the shooter? Where did the arrow pierce?
He scanned the area. “We are shot!” He shouted to alert the other warriors. “They shot the Medusoid!!”
Whoever shot the arrow knew exactly what they were doing. The gondola was too heavy for the escort to help carry. They could raid the goods easily now. As for the people on board, there was no way the warriors could help all of them in time.
The next arrow plunged into the Windray and set it on fire.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He needed to find the shooter’s location, or else there was no hope for anyone making it out alive. He scanned the slopes. The fire from the Windray was starting to churn out dark and cloudy smoke. The Windpeople were crying for help.
Where are they? Come on out.
Ah. There.
By that mountainside. Covering themselves with ashes to blend into the rock? Clever. And to ambush them out of their territory? Reckless and bold but still clever.
Focus on being the lookout. Tarsem’s order echoed in his head.
Neteyam gripped his bow. The others were pinned down, trying to save the civilians. If he stayed hidden as a lookout, his squad would be slaughtered by the unseen archers.
He had to draw their fire.
He shot three consecutive arrows back in their direction. Neteyam was an excellent shooter. He was even better at ikran riding, which was second only to his mother, Neytiri.
The arrows struck true. He saw the figure jerk back before disappearing behind the rock. He knew he had hit the target, but he did not know if the enemy had moved fast enough to turn a fatal shot into a mere flesh wound.
He waited and mentally counted down. From the distance and trajectory, it should take ten heartbeats for the arrows to reach the target and another ten or so for him to be responded to with an arrow. He needed to see if they would fire back. If they did, he would have to commit to a full arrow fight. If they did not, he could assume the job was finished and move to help the merchants.
12, 13, 14, 15, 16…
No counterattack. He must have hit the bullseye. As he always did.
Suddenly, a weird-looking flaming arrow flew into view. It was heavy and moved more slowly than a standard arrow. He dodged it easily.
BOOM.
The arrow exploded into a colorful array of lights.
It was a firecracker arrow.
The sudden flash of blinding colors burned into his retinas and left him completely sightless for a terrifying second. His ikran’s left wing was blown thoroughly apart. The beast screeched in pain and clawed the air to stay afloat, but gravity took hold. He was being pulled down by the dead weight of his mount. He unbuckled from his saddle.
The next thing he realized was that he was free-falling with his heart in his throat.
He looked up through the smoke. A figure on an ikran, painted blood crimson, obsidian black, and ash white, drove down just above him. The rider was diving in sync with his fall.
Neteyam could see the rider’s eyes staring straight into his.
The ground rushed up to meet him.
Right before he hit the dirt, the rider’s ikran snatched him out of the air. Its talons clamped around his waist. It lowered him aggressively to the ground and slammed him into the dirt.
The impact knocked the wind out of him. The beast hopped off his chest but remained close. It hovered over him like a dark storm cloud and dared him to move.
The figure slid off the saddle and landed on the forest floor with a heavy thud.
“You shot my ikran. Your ikran paid for that.”
The figure spoke up as she walked toward him. Neteyam tried to get up, but the enemy ikran snarled and shoved its snout into his chest. It knocked him back into the dirt and kept him there with a warning growl. His arrows had fallen out of his quiver during the crash and littered the forest floor with none within reach.
“You shot my arm. Your kin will pay for that.”
Her voice was cold but laced with pain.
The word kin hit him harder than the kick. To a Sully, family was the heartbeat of the world. To hear it used as a currency for revenge made his blood run cold.
The raider looked at the arrow plunged deep into her bicep. The pain must have been blinding, yet she did not scream. She did not panic. She gripped the shaft. But she did not pull it out.
With a sickening grunt, she drove the arrow deeper into her own flesh. She pushed it down until the fletching was buried against the entry wound to act as a plug. She hissed in agony but did not stop until the blood flow was stanched by the feathers. Then she snapped the protruding end of the shaft.
Snap.
Neteyam froze. It was efficient. Brutal. It was the way his father treated wounds. Where did she learn that?
“I was defending a trade route!” Neteyam roared as he tried to ignore the throbbing in his shoulders. “You are the ones raiding innocent lives!”
“Innocence is a luxury for those with full bellies, Omatikaya,” she spat. She buckled for a split second as her wounded leg gave way, revealing a second arrow lodged in her shin. But she snarled and forced herself to stand. “You shot my leg. Your lover will pay for that.”
Neteyam gritted his teeth. His bow, which he had carved with his own hands after his Iknimaya, lay broken in half nearby. He was calculating a way out. His fingers inched toward the knife at his hip.
The threat did not land with the same weight as the one against his kin. He was spoken for, sure. It was an arrangement for the future Olo’eyktan, but there was no heart in it. No face flashed in his mind to fear for, not like the one he lost years ago. He kept his demeanor coiled and tight while revealing nothing.
“Ah ah ah,” the raider chimed while biting back a cry from her own burns. “Break his shoulders.”
She signaled her ikran. The beast obeyed instantly. It slammed its talons onto his shoulders to pin him down. The weight crushed him into the soil. Neteyam gasped as his vision whitened. A ragged, guttural groan tore from his throat as his arms fell uselessly to the dirt.
The ikran stepped back. It knew he was in no position to counter or escape now.
“Good. Conserve your voice. You will need it when I ask of your kin and your lover.”
It took a while for him to come back from the excruciating throb in his shoulders.
“Like hell I would,” he croaked. Despite the pain, he still held onto the bravado.
“Ah, good. I was hoping to try this interrogation technique I have just learned.”
“Nothing will make my lips unseal,” he spat out.
“Who said anything about lips?”
Huh?
She swiped her thumb over his bottom lip. It was a dark and confusing caress.
The figure crouched onto him. Her palms came up to cradle his face. He gulped. The act felt intimate. Too intimate.
Her hand snaked around to the back of his head to grab his kuru.
“W…What are you doing?!” He managed to swallow down a choke of panic.
“Oh, you will know soon,” she said as she fished her own kuru up. The pink ends flared into life. They pulsed with a soft and biological heat that made him shudder. It was too intimate, and it evoked a shameful whimper from his throat.
“The mating act is sacred! Not for you to—!” He shouted as he thrashed about and tried to shake her off. He could not push her away. He could not even lift his arms.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and added new layers of pain to the bruised flesh. “Relax. Tsaheylu is not only for mating.”
“My Tsahik, the genius that she is, found a new way to use this Eywa’s blessing in a more… meaningful way.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What meaningful way?”
Their ends of the kuru are linked.
“Torture. Truth extraction.”
SNAP.
She threw her head back and laughed. It was a sharp and jagged sound that echoed with malice.
He withered in pain as his back arched off the damp earth. But he did not scream. The silence was louder than any noise he could have made. The stingbats in the forest flew away from the sheer psychic pressure radiating from him. The pain from his end of the kuru was greater than any physical wound he had ever endured. It flooded the pain receptor gates. The throb in his shoulder was nothing but a light feather touch compared to the neuron overload from the bond.
It felt like she was poking and prodding in his memory like a constant and rusty grating at his grey matter. It was a violation of the mind. It was the Dark Connection. She was tearing through his mental defenses to steal his secrets and invade his soul.
Then suddenly it stopped.
The grating pain vanished. It was replaced by a warm and drowning flood. The connection shifted from invasion to unity. He felt solemn affection. Aching longing. Nostalgia. Homesickness. He felt her heartbeat syncing with his own as if they shared a single chest.
A sudden and searing heat ignited between them. It was not the burn of hatred but the scorching flames of shared desire.
…Neteyam?
The figure croaked out.
No… this… this cannot be.
He forced his eyes open and squinted at the figure above him. Under the ashy white paint and past the self-inflicted scar and past the bone that pierced the nose bridge… it was a familiar face. The one he adored. The one he had looked for everywhere for the past five years.
“Y/n?” he whispered.
The torture in his system was gone in an instant. Only her and his unspoken feelings flowed through the bond. The tsaheylu had shifted. It was not torture anymore. It was something permanent. Something like soul-binding.
Neteyam closed his eyes and was overwhelmed by the additional sensations. He could sense the things you did, and you could sense the things he did. The unified body consciousness was locking them together. The mating bond was snapping into place with the force of a thunderclap.
“This… this was a mistake,” you said breathlessly.
You scrambled back and forcefully ripped the connection apart.
The backlash hit you both like a physical blow. You cried out and clutched your head while Neteyam gasped and his eyes rolled back. It was not a clean break. It was an amputation. It felt like carving a part of the soul out with a dull knife. The agony mirrored perfectly between the two of you.
You mounted your ikran in a panic and took off into the smoke-filled sky.
You left him on the damp forest floor all over again.
