Lele

Chapter 1.

His voice is the first thing Meía notices about him. There's a distinct twang to it, and it's accented. Glaringly out of place here in the lush forests of Pandora. 

She knows it. Not personally, but she’s heard it enough times from the video logs at Hells Gate that when she hears it coming from the mouth of a Sawtute demon in a false body, she freezes. 

It’s him. It has to be him. But he’s —

(She had known the moment Lo’ak had told her his idea to come here that it was a bad idea. Coming here – to this place of death – had been a mistake. It wasn’t just some decrepit shed left to the forest of Pandora so much as it was a grave. She’s not even sure why she had agreed to come in the first place. 

(Mostly out of boredom, she supposes. Maybe some morbid curiosity. For whatever silly reason, she had come, not expecting to find the ghost of her dead father at his grave.)

But he’s not a ghost. She’s not sure what he is, but whatever it is she knows it’s wrong.

He doesn’t notice her at first. It’s something she’s used to, small and human as she is. According to Neteyam, it was easy to lose track of her because of how small she was compared to them. Even at her tallest she barely reached their waists. So it doesn’t surprise her (even if it hurt) that he didn’t look at her and immediately recognize her.

Still, when he does finally acknowledge her, she finds herself wishing he hadn’t.

“What’s your name, kid? ”

He’s staring at her now, yellow cat-like eyes that seemed to glow in the waning light, waiting expectantly for an answer to his question. Adrenaline is still coursing through her as she tries to think of something. 

He asks her again, impatient. She’s still trying to think, but when the grip on her arm tightens painfully (she’s going to have bruises later) and she feels herself roughly being pushed forward, she can’t help but hiss, “Meía.”

It’s not a name he would know her by, and when he keeps staring at her, not even a smidgen of recognition for his own daughter behind those false eyes, she adds (for good measure), “Socorro.”

She regrets it the moment she says it. When his ears perk up and his face shifts in obvious recognition, dread making a home for itself deep in her belly as he motions his team off and she watches, muscles tight and rigid with anticipation as he sinks down to his knees in an effort to see her better in the waning light. Meía knows she’s small. Even by human standards. But no matter how high she holds her chin she still has to crane her neck just to look him in the eye. 

She hates it; just like she hates him. 

For the first time in her life, she finds herself grateful for the mask that separates her from him, feeling some small measure of protection behind the air-tight plastic that’s always been her prison. 

“Milly?” he croaks, and she’s heard his voice enough times from the video logs to know what it sounds like, but it had always been through the screen of a computer. Never like this. Never in person, or with her name on his lips. 

It feels like a joke. A terrible, cruel joke. Like the ones the other Omaticayan children would play on her when she was a little girl. It feels like that, but so much worse. Like arrows in her heart. 

She swallows the pain away, like she always does. “I don’t go by that name anymore,” she says, defiant. 

“Well, I’ll be damned. I thought they’d have sent you back to Earth,” he says, but all Meía hears is that he’s just as surprised to see her as she is him, which is laughable because:

“I thought you were dead,” counters Meía, glaring up at him as he cocks his head to the side, appraising her once more with eyes she had imagined countless times in place of her own. It’s not fair, she thinks as he rises to his full height. But life is hardly fair, especially hers.

He looks away, and Meía is glad to not be trapped under the scrutiny of his stare anymore.

Still, every time she tries to steal a glance at him when she thinks no one is looking, yellow always greets her.