#avatar!reader

jake sully was a menace. you were almost certain the purpose of his sole existence was to irritate and rage bait you.

most days it was before you even linked up into your avatars.

you always woke up first, heading to the lab to get some research done, writing down what pandoran flora you were out to look for today. usually norm and grace would slowly pile into the room, one or the other forced to wake up jake by the time it was almost nine. lately, however, jake took it upon himself to set his alarm for six thirty; a solid thirty minutes after you woke up, and thirty minutes before grace and norm trudged out. prime bothering you time. he’d prefer longer, but couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed and match your absurdity.

the low whine of his wheelchair along the floor of the biolab corridor never failed to alert his presence. he never announced himself like a normal person would, at least audibly. it was always you standing in front of your desk and the sudden thunk thunk of the front of his wheelchair kissing your ankles. once, twice, maybe three times if you didn’t fall on your ass or screech with a glare over your shoulder.

it was usually a fall on your ass type of situation. that was jake’s favorite.

“ouch! move, dickhead!” you hissed from the floor, arm swinging out to hit whatever you could find in the plummet, failing to enact revenge.

jake only looked down from above, a cheshire grin, a quick ‘ah!’ as he dodged your hit between joyous laughter that didn’t belong at six in the morning.

“mornin’ doc.” he smugly spoke, proud of himself. a quick turn around in his wheelchair and he was off to grab coffee and whatever else he could bug you with.

pulling yourself up from the ground, you grumbled and tried your hardest to stay annoyed while you watched him roll to the other side of the room. but truthfully, you’d been glancing at the clock and waiting eagerly for his arrival. it was impossible to admit that to yourself, though.

usually, with anyone else, jake would feel at least a twinge of guilt at kicking their feet out from under them. but anyone else looked at him like a poor cripple who needed his hand held. you didn’t.

it was refreshing the way you took one look at him the first day—at his eyes, not just fleetingly over his legs—and threw a crumbled up paper at the side of his head, making grace and himself swivel to look over at you. there you were, hands flat and leaning forward on a desk, beaming with the prettiest smile he’d ever seen; like a lighthouse beacon, and he was the one out at sea, following the rays to get to shore. “jake, right? your avatar’s better lookin’ than you!” you’d shouted.

the smile on his face was instant, a quick ‘oh yeah?’ and even quicker retort. “you one of the scientists that play in the dirt with worms?” he’d shout over, and you threw your head back laughing, earning an eye roll from norm.

so, he decided you could handle it. he roughed you up the same way you gave him shit. gently, of course; he knew you’d get up and brush it off, the same way you knew he didn’t need help climbing out of the pod, or an extra hand when his wheel caught and he tipped over (you did try once and he swore at you, which tickled you enough to dissolve all concern and laugh at him). in the back of his mind, it was like a reminder to you that he could still be rowdy, that you didn’t have to look at him as a scarred vet. you could just see him as jake, who held his own and sized up against you, even if he was a few heads below. he had to reaffirm his independence if he wanted to shoot his shot, too.

although, the first time he knocked your ankles was an accident and he thought about it all day, face in a pathetic frown every time you looked over. it took reassurance from you that you didn’t care, your ass was firm enough to cushion your landing, you’d said. he snorted and accepted it, and the sleazy part of him risked a glance to make sure you were accurate in that statement when you walked away—and then he felt bad again, but still struggled to tear his eyes away from your ass. fortunately you were right.

things fell into a rhythm almost instantly. jake teasing you around every corner, you swatting his head and giving it right back. leaning on each other in the unique way of poking and prodding was a comfort. you learned early that threatening to run his chair battery down to zero only spurred whatever daredevil he had inside him. it would earn you a mischievous grin, like being stranded at your mercy was a gift and not a punishment. a constant in the state of chaos that was this new alien world of pandora.

jake wasn’t all roughhousing though. some days he’d greet you nice, like he’d woken up to flower petals and candles leading straight to you, and you were on a bed in the middle of rose petals shaped into a heart. except the bed was your desk and you were nose deep in a book.

in suave jake fashion, he’d roll up to the high partition, resting his forearms casually on the top edge. “morning sunshine. what’s the plan for today?” his words always biting in the perfect way, underlined with some fraction of truth. it was also an ode to how he saw you, so elevated that he considered you the one to run the show—or at least the jake show—as if grace’s say so wasn’t what lead his decisions for the day, but rather you. would he follow you into the forest as you and the other two scanned plants? would he trail after you during strength training? or would he have to bare the cold, hard world of pandora alone without his leash attached to your grip?

you didn’t need to glance up to know he was grinning, but you did anyways to make your day worse. his smile was wide and boyish, eyes crinkling, lopsided; far too ecstatic like he was genuinely excited to be in your orbit. it clenched at your stomach, and it almost pained you that you didn’t have him—it was unknown to you that if you said just that, he’d be yours in a second. the frown on your face was accidental.

“c’mon, you still acting like you hate having me around?” jake pressed a bit, arms flexing as he rested his chin on them. one reached out, patronizingly taking the fat of your cheek between his thumb and forefinger, pinching it. “pitiful.” he teased, emphasizing it with a gentle shake.

you didn’t slap his hand away, and it allowed him far more time than usual to linger. it was only a couple seconds, but he took the chance to do damage. jake’s thumb traced up your cheekbone, heel of his palm sliding along your skin as he reached for a new destination. his fingers ducked under the drape of your hair, gently pinching and tugging at your earlobe, something annoying and intimate and surprising he could do.

“i’m tying you to a log and frying you on a fire, that’s the plan.” you grumbled. finally, you slapped his hand away, and jake beamed.

“oh yeah? tying people up, huh? knew you were mean, but that’s a new low. that something you partake in on your free time—?” jake’s endless quips faded as you got up to walk across the room.

“no, just your annoying ass.” you cut him off, looking back at him flatly.

“ah, so i’m special? or it’s because i’m in a wheelchair!” he shouted, brows raised in challenge, going on and on. as soon as you spoke a word to him it was like a dog who got a bone, gnawing and chewing it as fast and hard as he could.

then you’d link up, and he’d go rabid.

jake’s personality was big to make up for whatever he thought he lacked, which in your professional opinion wasn’t much—maybe a haircut and an attitude adjustment. but once he was in his avatar, the body matched the aforementioned attitude. he became nine feet of lean muscle and lithe limbs, broad shoulders that filled out the whatever shirt he was forced to squeeze into, a stride that ate up the ground like he was meant to. whatever confidence he had before was amped up tenfold, but jake was still humble enough that it seemed like maybe this was how he was meant to be all along.

when jake first linked up it was like everything finally made sense to him. the body he was in was foreign, sure, but it never felt more his. that was clear as day to you when you first saw him in his avatar.

you’d heard a new avatar escaped from the medical center, running ramped and unable to be reeled in. you also knew jake and norm were two of the new ones linking up today, and the last time you saw norm break the rules was when he stole a pen, guiltily replacing it with four more—so it must’ve been jake.

you spotted him in the clearing, still clad in his hospital gown and looking around like he was in disbelief. he was huge, and not just na’vi huge, but genetic anomaly in a tube huge. most likely a fair foot half foot above an oma’ticayan. you knew he’d get a kick out of that when he saw you—him nine foot five, you eight eleven.

the irony of jake being in a new body was that he looked… right. it wasn’t because he was different now—no, jake was perfect as he was brought to you in the space craft, and it didn’t matter if he was leaning close over a desk or standing tall in a blue body. you didn’t see a change in human jake and avatar jake, not really. he was still the man who kicked your ankles for attention. it’s just that… his muscles were more relaxed than you’d ever seen them, his chin was held high and his eyes were closed in reverence like he was feeling the breeze for the first time. you realized then how much more comfortable he must have been in regaining his legs, but there was something else entirely too.

it was like the man inside hell’s gate, sitting in the pod, had been a glitch, and this was the real jake sully.

then he saw you. approaching him from the trees where you’d been digging around for worms, or so he called it. for one heartbeat, the cocky marine vanished. his eyes widened, golden irises dilating, and his breath caught audibly in his chest. you were tall, almost as tall as him but not quite, the same shade of blue, shorts and a tank top showing off your striped stomach, and your tail—a tail—was whipping behind you in amusement.

jake stared like you were the first living thing he’d ever truly seen. the way your hair was half up and pinned back by a flower species he’d never seen, the subtle shift of muscle in your strong legs as you walked, the quiet confidence like you’d always been in this body. you still had your core features in some way, structure mostly the same, high cheekbones, a bit more feline, and oddly enough the same eyes, even if they were a different color. this was still you, just you in blue, and it was merely a second skin to call your own; and you looked just as destined to be planted here as he was.

something raw had flickered across his face, wonder, gratitude, a flicker of thank fuck i get to see this. it hit him all at once, standing almost eye to eye with you now as you finally approached, that this random scientist girl he happened to be stuck on an alien planet with was worth every shitty day back on earth.

then he blinked when he realized you’d said something and shook his head, snapping himself out of it.

“you escaped.” you said simply, easy smile adorning your face—that smile, you still had it in this new body.

jake took a beat to find his words, glancing around as a violet blush creeped up his cheeks. in order to converse with you jake had to physically dip his chin down just a tad, barely, but it was something he hadn’t done in a while since he had his legs on earth. he decided he liked being bigger than you, even if it meant both of you had to be eight to nine feet tall.

“well, i had to find you, even if it meant being an escaped patient.” he managed to muster up a coherent sentence. it was a joke, but the way he looked at you made it seem like there was no humor behind it.

a soft giggle left you and jake beamed, like you recharged his battery, his usual wolfish grin now having canines. “but i do have to say,” he began, the lilt of smugness in his voice making you see the human version of himself as he looked you up and down, “damn, doc. you clean up nice.”

it was almost comical, the ogling and exaggerated words, but if any other jarhead on the base spoke to you like that you’d punch them. you didn’t think too hard about what that meant. “oh, how charming.” monotonously you spoke and rolled your now golden eyes. long arms crossed and your hip subtly stuck out at the new distribution of weight, and jake’s eyes followed.

“no, seriously,” he began, walking around you in a slow circle, and it was your turn to blush. “this is unfair.” he gestured vaguely to all of you, grin widening. “how am i supposed to go on missions when you’re looking like that?”

now you wanted to slap him a bit, his cocky side rearing its head. it was hard to not like his eyes on you though, and you’d internally just checked him out nearly the same way; jake was just stupid enough to do it audibly.

you swatted at his arm that reached out to curiously swirl a lock of your hair around his finger. “focus on not tripping over your giant feet.”

jake laughed, bright and unrestrained, and caught your wrist mid swat, not rough, just firm enough to hold you there for a second while his thumb thoughtfully ran along your wrist. his new reflexes surprised you both, but he didn’t falter. your gaze flicked between him and his hold on you, lips parting in bashfulness.

“you’re the same as me. admit it,” he spoke, releasing your hand, “you like being big ‘n tall. gives you ideas, huh? bossing me around.” jake finished, bent to the side a bit in his swagger, unused to the new stature. his words came off as banter, ever the pro at masking what was underneath. his tongue poked his cheek as he assed the damage you could do—the damage he’d let you do. jake was still bigger, he reveled.

“i already boss you around,” you said matter of factly, stepping closer. it was your turn to touch, picking up his arm in the air and letting it fall like a fish, slapping his side. “and i could probably beat you up too if you don’t put on some muscle, so watch your mouth.”

comments like that lit a fire in jake, your mean teasing pushing him to poke the bear even more. cheeks flaring in that violet blush, he didn’t dare look away. it was like he wanted you to see, to notice how much fun he was having, how you could still bounce back and forth even in these bodies.

with the attention span of a toddler, jake moved on quick. his eyes spotted the flower in the back of your hair as you looked over your shoulder, hearing two other avatar’s playing basketball at the court nearby.

“what’s that flower?” he asked, reaching up to stroke a petal. his hand fell when you turned back with your brows lifted cutely. “in your hair,” he mimicked, finger pointing at his own head. “never seen it before.”

“oh!” you reached back and pulled it out of your hair. holding it between you, jake watched you swirl it back and forth by the stem between your blue fingers. it had five petals, a deep mix of blue and purple with a bright pink outline along the ridged edges of each one. “it’s a juvenile tsawksyul. i wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t already fallen on the ground and off the vine.” you explained as if you, the sweet, funny girl with the big heart, would ever hurt a living creature; as if jake could ever even think that. additionally, you spoke the na’vi words cleanly like it was your first language, and jake felt the urge to hold you.

as you reached up to do something—jake didn’t really care what, because you were suddenly leaning closer and his heart was racing—you spoke, “but we call it a sun lily.” your words were punctuated with the feeling of the stem being placed behind his ear.

you had just put a sun lily behind jake sully’s ear and now he had a new favorite flower, one he didn’t even know existed five minutes ago.

the beaming smile you gave him while you drank in the image of the dork in front of you was heartbreaking in the best way. he looked dumb, eyes wide and mouth open in silence, bright blueish purple flower hooked behind his ear.

“you look too cute, jake sully.” you decided teasingly. a soft hum from jake, his lips pressing together, and his eyes softening visibly. gaze flicking all across your face, he looked like he was thinking too hard, or maybe not at all. maybe just trying to remember the moment.

before he could respond, grace appeared behind you from some kind of bungalow, something in hand. “think fast, marine!” she shouted as she chucked it.

unceremoniously, it hit your arm and you bent over in pain, whatever nicety you exchanged with him disappearing like smoke. “owww!” you shouted. it didn’t take long for jake to realize you weren’t really hurt and start cackling like a hyena.

behind you, grace cringed and shouted apologies, laughter floating from her too. jake leaned down to pick up what turned out to be a fruit—a super hard fruit that had you clutching your shoulder. “dumbass.” he snickered, rubbing the blossoming violet skin for you as he straightened.

things fell into place more solidly after that. the constant push and pull was a fun game, and being in new bodies didn’t hinder that in the slightest.

with jake now being so tall when in his avatar, it was sweet how he didn’t let his step falter beside you. long blue legs matched your pace,. your own identical ones were just a couple inches shorter, but that combined with jake buzzing with enthusiasm to just walk again should’ve had him sprinting down the corridor, but he didn’t.

he never sprinted ahead or left you trailing him. even when his longer legs outdistanced you in three strides, he’d halt immediately when he didn’t feel your presence beside him, waiting with his ears pricked up until you were right next to him once more, and then he picked up where he left off like a pause in a sentence. being able to keep up with you, following on the same path with the same stride, was a gift he didn’t intend on wasting.

you caught him glancing sideways sometimes. there wasn’t the usual smirk or teasing quip, but sneaky little side glances like he was a boy trying not to get caught. watching the way your tail moved back and forth, your pointed ears flickering at every sound, and each time his eyes were soft or wide with wonder. like he couldn’t believe he got to be next to you in a body that actually worked.

however, jake sully didn’t go a over couple hours without pestering you.

finding any excuse to be in your space was easy. reaching for a scanner he didn’t need that happened to require him leaning right in your bubble, chest brushing your shoulder. sometimes he shoulder checked you by “accident, doc” when passing you in the wild while on different missions for the day; like he had to let you get it even inbetween working. let you know that he saw you, cutely bent over or squatting next to a too tall tree to scan a new plant as he learned how to carry a gun in these new hands, even if you were all the way across the field.

once he actually got to stick his head in the forest with you as your bodyguard, that’s when he decided pulling your hair was his favorite.

with all the beautiful alien flora and fauna surrounding you, jake’s eyes only zeroed in on the flowing hair cascading down your shoulders. it was long, longer than your human hair, and scattered with a few braids, one long one holding your queue in the back. jake still didn’t fully understand what the hell that thing did, either. another question to pester you with during na’vi lessons he’d begged you to give him.

jake waited until you squatted to scan another plant before he casually hooked two fingers in one of your braids and gave it a firm tug. it was like you were kids on a playground and he was six years old tugging your pigtails because he didn’t know how to say look at me.

you whipped around, ears flat as you looked up at him. the bright sun flared behind him like a halo, and you squinted, hand covering your eyes. “sully.” you hissed in warning.

if your tail wasn’t lashing, he wasn’t pleased, and it wasn’t, so he tugged again. he was looking straight down in your eyes as he did it, until you stood fast, face to face. as usual, jake was already grinning, his canines showing, but his cheeks were violet in a blush. he never ducked his head to hide it, nor look away to save his pride. eagerly he stared back, proud and hot faced, as if you making him blush just from your attention was a badge of honor, and being caught with it saturated on his cheeks made this whole thing more fun.

“problem?” he drawled. the lock of hair was still between his fingers, and he feigned inspecting it like it was fine silk upon his head, so it was his right to do so. you smacked his hand away, hard.

“ah!” surprised, he shook his head hand out and laughed boisterously. “fuck! you hit like you mean it.”

“because i do mean it,” you inched closer, pointing your scanner at him like it was a weapon. the strength in your avatar was ten times the one in your human form, and despite his new growing muscles from training, it was your chance to beat jake up since his skin was as solid as yours.

gold eyes flicked between the scanner, your glaring face, and your swishing tail. jake didn’t flinch nor step back, but leaned into the scanner with his chest puffed. “go on then, hit me with it, make me behave.” he grinned, words getting under your skin easy.

instead, your hands hit his solid chest and you pushed him, and he let you, rocking back willingly. if he really wanted to, jake could’ve stood there like nothing happened, but he liked making you think you had a chance.

another laugh, never ending it seemed, and he steadied with his eyes never leaving you. “careful, doc. you keep pushin’ and i might think you like havin’ your hands on me.” his words were too casual, speech almost accented with the lack of ‘g’s as they got slurred together. a push was enough to make him dizzy, and it had nothing to do with balance.

“sully, i swear—“

“what?” innocent as anything, he crowded your space again. another slip of his fingers into your hair, this time the unbraided pieces, and he watched the black cascade between blue digits swimming in it. “it’s distracting. all this hair swishin’ around while you’re trying to be all serious and scientific. how am i supposed to concentrate?”

“you’re not, you’re supposed to shut up and guard.” you huffed but didn’t slap his arm away for once, letting him do as he pleased. jake sensed it and took advantage of it, finding the thick braid that held your queue and sliding it through his palm, bringing it over your shoulder. in an attempt to hide your shiver, you backed up a step, and his brows raised. jake needed to ask about that. maybe this kuru thing was interesting after all.

the braid slowly slid out of his hand as you backed up, and he savored each second it was in his palm. “yeah, well, guarding you means keepin’ an eye on everything. including you.” he raised a brow now pointedly.

a soft laugh from you, realization as you kept backing up. “you know,” you mused, hand sliding over a giant leaf in thought, “i almost forgot you were a trained marine with a big gun strapped to your back.”

like a dog to a treat—always a dog, somehow—jake followed you slowly, smile devastatingly bright. eyes trained on you as he watched the green forest swallow you up, jake noticed that the sun bouncing off of the canopy’s above made your usual deep blue skin twinge cyan. for a second it felt like he was being lured by a siren and not a heartbreakingly beautiful scientist that was telling him to get lost.

remembering you just spoke to him, jake’s brows shot up, feet carrying him forward. “need me to remind you?” he teased, no actual threat in the slightest.

you laughed with a shake of your head, and suddenly your fingers dragged upon a plant beside you and it popped and shrank. a sharp squeak and you jumped, and jake had half a mind to reach for his gun if he wasn’t already watching every inch of you. assessing danger with his honed hearing while admiring you was an easy task to juggle in this new body. he was still alert—couldn’t let you get hurt, after all.

still smiling, jake caught up with you. “alright, enough fun. stay close.” despite him always starting it, jake would quickly cut the fun just as fast if it compromised you. he shoved his body between you and the weird plant.

“ooh! wait but-“ you gripped his firm bicep, tip toes to look over his broad shoulder. “that’s a helicordian!” you gasped and gently pushed past him.

jake shook his head fondly, watching you kneel and pull out your scanner. “it’s neuromuscular system makes it super hard to classify but by its coiling up and retracting, i suspect it’s exactly that!” you babbled on.

it seemed as if he wasn’t listening by the ‘mhm’s and ‘oh yeah?’s but it was quite the opposite. jake sully hung onto every word you ever spoke.

You watch now as he paces around the marui, muscles flexing, you dissociate as he yells in pits of rage, but your eyes can only see one thing;

the photos. the ones you took such delicate time to put up, the photos where you and Neteyam are posed and happy, young and in love. 

And the ones of your children, your three, half blood children. Two with five fingers and only one with four. 

Neteyam’s voice rises and falls like a blade striking stone. Words spill from him, laced with anger and grief, all of it aimed at the sky people, something you will always be on the inside.

You don’t flinch anymore when he gets like this.

Not on the outside, at least… Because inside, something else is happening. Your gaze stays fixed on the wall of your marui.

On the carefully placed memories that feel like they belong to someone else now. You remember even the day you took the first photo. 

He had been shy about it, awkward, complaining about the strange human device in your hands. But he smiled anyway, soft, reluctant but real. The kind of smile that never reaches him anymore.

But you had captured him like that. You had captured both of you like that. Before the war carved him into something harder.

Before his eyes began to look through you instead of at you. 

A sharp sound pulls you back, his hand slamming against a wooden beam. You don’t jump, you just blink, slowly, like surfacing from the ocean.

“They are monsters.” He spits, voice cracking at the edges. “They take and take and take—there is nothing good in them.”

Your chest tightens immediately. Nothing good. The words settle heavily in your ribs, pressing against your lungs. 

Because what does that make you?

What does that make your children?

Your eyes drift again, to the smaller photos beneath. Tiny hands gripping his fingers. Wide smiles, mismatched features, some his, and some yours. Beautiful in ways this world refuses to accept.

Neteyam turns, still breathing hard, still burning, and for a moment his eyes land on you. There’s something there—something conflicted, something almost guilty, but it vanishes too quickly, swallowed by the storm behind it.

You wonder, not for the first time, if he sees it, if he sees what his words do to you. Or if, somewhere along the way, his hatred grew so large that it stopped making exceptions.

Even for you, and even for them.

“They wear our skin like armor, with their alien hands. I hate their pink, little hands!” He curses, “they’re so weak and small. All of them. I hate them all, Y/n.”

“You don’t mean that.” you murmur.

“Yes, I do.” He snaps.

The marui feels so small now, tight in the air of his wrath. “You hate me?” You ask, voice shaking. 

His expression shifts. “You are not them.” 

“I was born one,” you whisper. “I have their blood.” 

“You are not them,” he repeats, louder this time.

You flinch slightly, small—subtle, but he notices. “You hate your children? With their alien hands?” 

“No.” He says, too quick.

“And what am I, Neteyam? If not half human?” 

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Silence follows. 

“And what are they?” You continue, softer now, but heavier than anything he’s said.

Neteyam does not have to ask to know who you are referring to. “They are Na’vi.” He says, firm.

“Some of them look like me. With their little alien hands. Right?” 

“They are ours.” He says, quick, like it fixes everything.

You shake your head. “Will the People ever see it that way?”

He doesn’t answer because he can’t. Silence stretches tight and suffocating. And then it breaks.

“I don’t know why you keep defending them!” he bursts. “After everything they’ve done—after everything they’ve taken!” 

“I am not defending them!” You shout. “I am asking you to see me when you look at them! To see your children, your brother, your sister, to see your father!”

“I do see you! And I see my children, I see Kiri and I see Lo’ak!  I have always seen my father!” He steps closer, voice rising.

“No you don’t,” you say quietly, but it lands like a blade. “Not when you talk like this.” 

His jaw tightens, frustration twisting into something sharper. “They would burn this place to the ground without a second thought.” He whispers harshly. “They would take our children-“

“Stop,” you warn, voice cracking. 

But he doesn’t stop. “They would take them, alter their minds. Make them forget us,” he says, voice rising again. “Make them speak like them, turn them against their own family! Against the People.” 

Silence slams down between you. Your chest tightens, not shock, not anger, just the cold burn of hurt. 

“And that’s what you think I am?”

“Neteyam freezes. “I didn’t-“ 

“You just described me,” you say, tears brimming, voice trembling. “Someone who speaks like them, thinks like them. Someone who left them behind.”

“That’s not-”

“Then explain the difference,” you cut in softly. “Because I don’t see one.”

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out, and that’s when you break. You step out, passing him, passing the woven photos, and passing the marui. 

You don’t look at him, you just walk until you practically can’t anymore, until you reach a wooden post at the edge of the village. Your hands grip it, and you finally let yourself be. 

footsteps approach as quickly as the tears fall. “I’m sorry, baby.” A familiar voice whispers behind you. 

Before you can react, his hands are wrapped around your chest. Gentle and steady. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean a single word to hurt you.” 

Your hands reach up to grip his arms. “I was angry,” he continues, low and urgent. “And I,” his lips brush your ear, his breath ghosting the sensitive area beneath them. “I never meant to make you feel like you don’t belong here with me and with us.” 

“But you did.” You breathe.

“I know,” he murmurs, voice rough, filled with regret. “And I’m so sorry, baby. I don’t want you to feel torn apart by my anger.” 

You close your eyes, letting his presence flood through you. “It hurts, Neteyam. Even if you don’t mean it. I hear it.” 

“I hear you,” he whispers, voice almost breaking. “I see you, I see all of you. The human, the Na’vi, everything in between. And I love all of it. I love you.” 

Your shoulders shake, but not from fear.

“I will try to hold back from this anger, for you and for the children. I will hold you, all of you.”

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, his hand snakes over yours, over your fingers. 

“And I will always try, because I don't want to lose you or the kids.”

Your tears finally fall freely, without you cowering or shrinking away. But this time, you let him hold you. 

Your children turn a corner and are about to enter the marui when they spot you, each of them run over—holding toys, carved and painted by their small hands.

The moment shifts the air completely. 

Your youngest reaches you first, her small feet slapping softly against the ground, cutting through the tension like sunlight.

She crashes into you without hesitation, small arms wrapping around your legs like nothing in the world could ever be wrong. 

“Mama!” She chirps, her voice bright and breathless. The others follow close behind—one skidding slightly to a stop, and the other slowing just enough to take in your face.

Your middle child tilts her head, eyes flicking between your tear streaked cheeks and Neteyam standing behind you. “Why are you crying?” she asks.

You open your mouth but nothing comes out yet. Neteyam’s arms loosen just slightly around you, allowing you some space, not speaking over you. 

you sigh heavily, forcing your voice to steady. “Just big feelings. sometimes they come all at once.” You brush your hand over your youngest daughter’s hair. 

Your oldest steps closer now, more cautious than more aware. His gaze lingers on his father for a moment—reading him in that quiet, instinctive way children sometimes do—before returning to you.

“Are you hurt, Mother?” He asks.

You shake your head quickly, pulling him close with your free arm. “No. No, I’m okay.” 

It’s not entirely true, but it is enough. Neteyam exhales behind you, like he’s trying to relearn how to exist now. His hand shifts, gently covering yours where it rests against your child’s back. 

Your small girl steps back just enough to hold something up proudly. A little carved toy, painted unevenly but with so much love that it makes your chest ache.

“Look Mommy! Look Daddy! I made this for you.” she says.

You blink, your vision blurring again, but softer this time. “For Me and for Daddy?” 

She nods eagerly. “It’s all of us!” 

You take it carefully, like it might break. Four fingers, one taller than the rest, one slightly broader—Neteyam. Then three smaller ones in between. 

Some are carved with four fingers, some with five, none of them look out of place. And this is somehow better than any picture.

Something in your chest cracks open, not painfully but wide, like light finally letting in. 

Neteyam’s hands move over yours, tracing the small wooden piece that fits perfectly in your hands. Your tail slows behind you, lifting so high that it brushes his neck. 

Your oldest leans against your side. “We’re all there,” he says simply, pointing at the carving. “See?”

“I see, my love.” you whisper. 

And you do, you see not the division, not the doubt, or the words thrown in anger, but you see the messy, imperfect, undeniable love. 

Your middle child suddenly looks up at Neteyam. “Did you make Mama cry?” She asks. 

Neteyam stiffens, for a moment you wonder if he’ll deflect it, soften it, or turn it into something easier. But he doesn’t, and when his voice comes, it is quiet. “Yes.” 

Honesty settles heavier than anything else. Your children don’t recoil, they don’t fear him. Your youngest just frowns slightly, then rubs your leg like she’s trying to fix it herself.

“Don’t do that.” She says matter of factly. 

Neteyam lets out a breath that almost comes out as a laugh, but it fractures halfway through. “I’ll try very hard not to.” He leans to her level. 

She gets closer to him now, her five fingers spreading across his cheeks, squeezing. “Good job, papa.” 

Your oldest studies him for a second longer, then he nods like he’s decided to believe him. 

Just like that, children forgive in ways adults forget how to. In this small and growing moment, you’re not too much of anything. You are exactly who they reached for when they carved that little piece of wood. 

@cursed-carmine for the ribbon divider, thank you!

Not in any way a stranger could have named, perhaps. The woven walkways were still strung between giant mangrove roots, the platforms still alive with the rhythm of hands at work, of children racing over sun-warmed wood, of nets being mended and fish being cleaned and voices rising over the endless breathing hush of the sea. But something in the air tightened all the same. The clan did not stop moving. It only moved differently, like a body drawing a breath and holding it.

You stood beside Tonowari when they arrived, just behind and slightly to his left, where the leader of the hunting parties would stand when judgment was to be watched but not yet spoken. Salt wind dragged across your skin. Your queue lay over one shoulder. The white marks of your avatar body caught the late light faintly, and though your build had always remained closer to the forest people than the reef people around you, the years had given you the easy balance of one who belonged here. Not by birth. Not by blood. But by time, by battle, by work, and by love.

It still did not stop them from looking.

You had long since learned how to feel it before you saw it. The way glances snagged on your hands, on your narrower tail, on your shoulders, on the traces that marked you as something that had not begun on Pandora no matter how deeply you had rooted yourself into it after. Most days you could let it pass like a tide under a canoe. Most days you could remind yourself that your mates had chosen you in full sight of what you were, that Tsireya’s laughter had first shaped itself around your name, that Ao’nung had once fallen asleep on your chest with seawater still drying in his hair after training. Most days it was enough.

This was not most days.

Jake Sully stepped forward carrying exile in the line of his body. Neytiri stood beside him like a drawn blade. Their children hovered near enough to their parents to show loyalty and far enough to show strain. Even before anyone said anything, the village had already seen the tails. The hands. The faces. The traces of sky-people blood riding alongside Na’vi bone.

And because the clan had seen them, the clan had thought of you.

Ronal’s gaze slid over the newcomers slowly. She did not spit the words some might have expected. She was too controlled for that, too sharp. Her judgment was worse for being clean. Her eyes rested on each child in turn, cool and measuring, then went to Jake, then back to Neytiri, then flicked once toward you before returning to Tonowari.

“They are very unlike us” she said.

That was all. Nothing louder. Nothing cruder. But the thought spread exactly as if she had named it outright. You felt it move through the gathered Metkayina like current through shallow water. Not all at once. Not boldly. Just enough. Half-breed. Strange. Wrong-shaped. Sky-touched. The same old poison dressed in softer cloth.

Tonowari spoke then, giving them uturu as his mercy demanded, because war and grief had driven them there and because he was not small enough to turn away those who came seeking sanctuary. You loved him most in moments like that. His voice was steady, his judgment larger than fear. Yet even while you loved him for it, some quieter and uglier part of you noticed that he never turned to the clan and stopped the way their eyes had slid to you too. He offered protection. He did not challenge implication.

Beside the Sullys, Lo’ak’s face set in that stubborn, bristling way boys wore when they had been cut too many times and refused to bleed where anyone could see it. Kiri stared back with painful calm. Neteyam stood straight as a spear. Tuk all but hid herself against Neytiri’s side.

Then Tsireya came up from the water, bright and curious and open as dawn, and the moment bent in a different direction for a heartbeat. Lo’ak looked at her as if the sea itself had climbed out to stare back at him. You would have laughed if the tension in the air had not still been sharp enough to cut.

Ao’nung and Rotxo ruined the moment almost immediately.

They did not begin at full cruelty. Boys rarely did when they were performing for a crowd. They started with the tails, with the shape of hands, with that dangerous tone that asked a question not because it wanted an answer but because it wanted permission to laugh. Tsireya told them to stop. Ao’nung did not listen. His eyes had gone to the Sully children with a brightness you knew too well. Not simple meanness. Worse. The thrill of sensing where the group’s cruelty would be safest, and stepping into it because it would make him bigger in their eyes.

You did not miss the way his glance brushed past you before he opened his mouth again.

That hurt more than it should have. It hurt because you knew where he had learned that comfort. Not from nowhere. Not from silence alone.

Still, the scene moved as it needed to. Tonowari assigned his children to help the Sully children learn the way of water. Only when Jake turned to him with the rigid, humiliated gratitude of a warrior accepting mercy with both hands did Tonowari glance toward you.

Tsireya was the one sent forward in the end.

That fit better than anything else could have. She was bright where the moment had gone brittle, open where the clan had narrowed in on itself, and young enough to step toward strangers without carrying quite so much of the adults’ suspicion in her bones. When Tonowari told her to show the Sullys where they would stay, she went without hesitation, all kindness and curiosity, gesturing for them to follow her deeper into the village with the easy grace that seemed to live in every part of her.

The others moved with her after a brief pause. Jake remained close to Neytiri. The children hovered around their parents, tense and watchful under so many eyes. Lo’ak looked like he wanted to stare at everything and fight half of it at the same time. Kiri was quieter, reading the village as if it might speak back if she listened hard enough. Tuk stayed tucked close. All of them followed Tsireya across the woven walkways and root-bridges while the clan watched them go.

You stayed where you were, still beside Tonowari, your face unreadable even while your thoughts moved harder than you wanted. Ronal had not said much, but she had not needed to. The clan had heard what sat underneath her judgment all the same, and because they had heard it, they had remembered you too. You could feel it in the aftertaste of the moment, in the glances that had lingered just a fraction too long before turning away.

Tonowari waited until the nearest listeners had drifted farther off before he spoke your name.

His voice was quieter now, stripped of the public weight it had carried a moment before. You looked at him, and something in his expression made you follow when he tilted his head slightly toward one of the outer platforms. It was not secrecy, exactly. More the instinct of a leader who knew when a conversation would grow teeth if it was given to the clan to overhear.

You went with him in silence.

The platform he chose sat a little apart from the nearest cluster of walkways, close enough to the village to remain within sight and far enough to let the noise of it blur into distance. Wind rolled in off the sea, carrying salt and the faint scent of algae warmed under the late sun. Below, the water shifted around the roots in restless blue-green ribbons.

Tonowari rested one hand against the rail of woven mangrove and looked out rather than at you immediately. “I want you to teach Jake Sully” he said.

You did look at him then.

For a beat, all you did was stare. Not because the request made no sense. In some ways it made too much. You were one of the strongest fighters in the clan. You understood adaptation better than most. You knew what it was to enter a people not shaped like yourself and learn anyway, hard and fast and under the pressure of never being allowed the comfort of true ignorance. Still, suspicion rose in you before duty did.

“Why me?” you asked.

Tonowari turned then, and he was too perceptive not to hear everything under the question. Not only why me because of skill. Why me when the clan has just been reminded what I am. Why me when Ronal looked at them and the people looked at me after.

His face softened, though not with pity. He had always known better than to offer you that. “Because you are capable” he said. “Because you see more than what is in front of you. Because he will need someone who understands both pride and shame if he is to learn quickly.”

Your mouth tightened. “That is not the only reason.”

“No” Tonowari admitted.

The honesty stopped you from hardening further.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice even more. “He is Olo’eyktan to his family even if he stands as refugee here. If he fails, the rest will feel it. If he is isolated, he will become harder to guide. You know warriors. You know how men like him carry humiliation. And…” He paused, studying you carefully. “There may be things in him you will understand more easily than others would.”

You held his gaze a long moment. “Because he was one of the sky-people.”

Tonowari did not flinch from it. “Yes.”

The word sat between you.

You looked away, out across the water where Tsireya’s bright figure could just be seen leading the Sullys farther along the village edge. Jake walked near the back now, his attention shifting everywhere at once despite the discipline in his posture. Soldier’s habit. Marine’s habit, maybe, though that thought came and passed before you had fully named it.

“And Ronal?” you asked at last.

Tonowari’s expression changed, not with irritation but with the knowledge that there was no use pretending that piece did not matter. “Ronal trusts you.”

“That was not my question.”

His jaw flexed once. “She will not interfere.”

You gave a short, humorless breath through your nose. “Another answer that is not the one I asked for.”

Tonowari accepted that too. “She does not like this burden being here at all” he said plainly. “But she does not doubt you. Neither do I.”

That should have eased you more than it did. Instead you found yourself searching his face for something smaller and meaner. Pity. Calculation. A hope that you would understand the Sullys because you were enough like them to make use of. Whatever he saw in your expression made his own grow steadier.

“This is not because I see you as closer to them than to us” he said, and now there was a firmness in him that left no room for retreat. “It is because I know exactly where you stand. With us. With this family. With this clan. Do not insult me by thinking I have forgotten.”

The rebuke was gentle only in tone. It landed harder for that.

You looked at him properly again. There was no hesitation in him now, no uncertainty, no crack through which old fear could crawl. For a brief moment the pressure in your chest loosened.

Then duty returned in full.

“If I do this” you said “I will not coddle him.”

Tonowari’s mouth twitched faintly. “I would be disappointed if you did.”

You folded your arms over your chest and stared out at the village once more. “And if he cannot learn?”

“Then at least he will fail honestly.”

That, more than anything, sounded like Tonowari.

Silence stretched for a few breaths. At last you nodded once. “Fine.”

Tonowari let out a breath so slight most would not have caught it. You did. He had wanted this more than he had let show. “Thank you.”

You shook your head. “Do not thank me yet.”

That almost drew a smile from him, but it faded before fully forming. Instead he stepped closer, slowly enough to give you time to refuse him if you wished. One of his hands came up to rest lightly at your waist, warm and familiar, and for a brief moment he only looked at you. Then he bent and kissed you.

It was soft, short, and almost unbearably gentle. No heat, no urgency, nothing that belonged to hunger more than affection. Just the quiet press of his mouth to yours, sweet with reassurance and the kind of love that had long since learned how to speak in smaller gestures. When he pulled back, he stayed close for only a heartbeat more before letting you go.

“I will send him to you after they settle” he said.

You watched him go.

——————————————————————

By the time Jake found you, the sun had shifted lower and the village had settled into that restless in-between hour when work had not yet ended but the worst of the day’s heat had broken. You were near one of the outer racks checking spear bindings, more to give your hands something useful to do than because the task truly needed doing. The sounds of Awa’atlu drifted around you in pieces: children splashing in shallows below, women calling to one another from the fish platforms, distant laughter, the low hush of water against root and wood.

You heard his steps before you turned.

Jake stopped a respectful distance away. For a moment neither of you spoke. Up close, it was easier to see what had first flashed at the edge of your notice before. The way he held his shoulders. The way he looked at space first, then movement, then exits, then finally people. The kind of stillness that was not ease but readiness worn so long it had become a second skin. He looked older than his face alone accounted for. More tired too.

He inclined his head slightly. “Tonowari said I’m with you.”

His Na’vi was serviceable, accented hard, each word carrying the weight of effort. You let him finish before answering.

“For now” you said.

Something in his expression shifted, not quite amusement and not quite resignation. He had likely already learned enough in the village to know that this was your version of mercy.

You set the spear aside and faced him fully. For a moment, you let the silence sit between you, weighing him properly now that the village noise had fallen farther away.

“Tonowari believes you can learn” you said at last. “I have not decided yet.”

Jake took that without visible offense. If anything, something in his posture settled, as if bluntness was easier for him to understand than politeness.

“Fair enough” he said.

You crossed your arms over your chest. “You will listen the first time. You will not argue every correction like wounded pride makes you smarter. And you will not expect me to make this easy because you were Toruk Makto, Olo’eyktan, or anything else that matters somewhere other than here.”

That finally pulled the faintest shift in his expression. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation. More like recognition of a hard tone he had heard before in other places, under other chains of command.

“Got it” he said.

You held his gaze another beat, watching for the usual signs. Swagger. Resentment. The need to prove himself immediately. Instead you found exhaustion, discipline, and something heavier buried under both.

That did not make you trust him. It only made you think he might be worth the effort.

For one strange beat, the air between you altered. Not softer. Sharper. Recognition trying on a shape before either of you trusted it enough to name. Neither of you moved first. Neither smiled. Yet some old instinct, buried under years and planets and new bodies and new loyalties, stirred its head.

You broke eye contact first because you disliked the feeling of being read.

“Walk” you said.

Jake followed without protest. You led him down one of the narrower village paths where the platforms thinned and the sound of the central marui softened behind you. For a while you said nothing, making him keep pace over slick wood and curving roots, watching whether he looked only at where he stepped or at the full environment around him. He adapted quickly, though not gracefully. Not yet.

At last you stopped near a lower platform where the tide had come in high enough to lap against the woven supports.

“If you are to remain here” you said, turning to him “you will learn more than how to swim their way and breathe their way. You will learn when not to take up space. You will learn when pride becomes a burden for everyone around you.”

Jake absorbed that without visible offense. If anything, his gaze grew a shade more direct. “You always start this friendly?”

“No” you said. “Normally I am worse.”

That did it. One corner of his mouth moved before he could stop it.

You noticed. So did he.

It vanished almost at once.

He was silent after that, and to his credit he did not push.

That, more than the recognition itself, was what made you decide he might actually be teachable.

——————————————————————

Jake Sully learned like a man who understood that failure was no longer private.

The first few days, you gave him no softness. You made him run the shallows until his breathing turned ragged. You corrected his stance with the blunt pressure of your hand against his shoulder and the sharper crack of your voice when words failed. You showed him how to move his balance lower on the slick roots, how to enter the water without fighting it, how to watch the current rather than only the surface. You kept your explanations short in Na’vi because he needed the language in his mouth as much as the skill in his limbs. When he stumbled, you made him go again. When he swore under his breath, you pretended not to understand.

By the end of the second day, both of you knew you were pretending.

He had just surfaced from another rough dive, pushing wet hair out of his face and coughing salt from his throat, when you said, “You are still trying to win against the water.”

Jake wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That obvious, huh?”

The English snapped between you so suddenly that both of you stilled.

Then, despite everything, the corner of your mouth twitched.

“Yes” you answered in the same language. “Painfully obvious.”

He barked a laugh. It came out rougher than amused, but it was real. For the first time since arriving, some of the tightness in him loosened.

“Jesus” he muttered. “That’s nice.”

“What?”

“English. No offense, but my brain feels like it’s getting beat with a shovel half the time.”

You folded your arms over your chest and looked at him a long moment. “You are doing better than you think.”

“Yeah?”

“No.”

That got a fuller laugh out of him, and there it was again, that quick flash of recognition. Not intimacy. Not anything you needed to fear. Just the strange, immediate ease of finding another person who had once stood under the same hard sun, listened to the same dead humor, worn the same kind of damage into the body until it became posture.

From the shallows, you saw Tonowari turn his head slightly from where he spoke with a group of hunters farther up the beach.

He looked away almost at once.

You told yourself it meant nothing.

——————————————————————

What unsettled your family was not one thing. It was accumulation.

Jake began to catch more of your English when it slipped out around frustration or instinct. Once, when he planted his foot wrong on a root slick with spray and nearly went backward into the water, you grabbed his arm and snapped “Watch your footing, soldier” before thinking. He froze. Then he stared at you with dawning disbelief.

“No way.”

You let go too quickly. “What?”

“That’s marine. Nobody says that like that unless—” He laughed under his breath. “You were one too.”

You did not answer immediately. Waves lapped around your calves. Farther out, ilu rolled just under the skin of the sea like ghosts. At last you said “A long time ago.”

“Still counts.”

“Not here.”

He studied you with a little too much understanding. “Yeah. I get that.”

You hated how much you liked being understood without having to pry your chest open for it. Hated, too, how dangerous that liking could look from the outside when no one else shared the language that carried it.

So you cut the moment short and sent him back underwater.

But these things added up. A phrase here. A tone there. A curse muttered in English when he swallowed too much water and came up sputtering. The half-grin you could not quite stop when he made some dry, bitter joke about command structures and impossible missions. The day you found yourself humming under your breath while sorting spears after training and he looked up from where he knelt checking a woven net.

“Hold on” he said.

You stopped.

“No” he said, staring. “No way.”

Your fingers tightened on the shaft in your hand. “What.”

“That song.”

You had not heard that song in years. Not truly. It was old even before Pandora, older still by the time it had crossed light-years with you in memory alone. Some fragment of Earth, half nursery-rhyme, half cheap old melody from barracks speakers and scratched recordings and a place so far gone it barely felt real anymore.

You should have denied it.

Instead you said “You know it?”

Jake let out a disbelieving breath. Then, very softly, he sang the next line.

Your whole body went still.

It was absurd. It was stupid. It was nothing but a few words from a dead world carried unexpectedly into salt air and reef light. And yet the force of it hit you somewhere behind the ribs. Something old and buried sat up inside you all at once.

So you sang back.

Not loudly. Not beautifully. Your voice had never been built for softness. Jake’s was worse, rough and low and frayed at the edges. But between you the melody formed anyway, pieced together from memory and laugh-broken mistakes and the sort of embarrassed amusement soldiers learned when they recognized one another being sentimental by accident.

When it ended, the silence after felt strange.

“Damn” Jake said.

You looked away toward the horizon because your throat had gone unexpectedly tight. “Yeah...”

“That was… damn.”

You stayed quieter this time.

Neither of you noticed Tsireya standing farther down the beach with an armful of shells for a long few seconds. By the time you did, her expression had already smoothed itself into something easy. She came forward smiling, asking what the song had meant, asking what language it was, asking if you would teach her a little of it.

You answered gently. You always answered Tsireya gently.

But that night, when you returned to the family marui, Ao’nung was sharper than usual. Ronal’s attention lingered on you too long before dropping. Tonowari asked how Jake had done, and the question was ordinary, but something under it was not.

You noticed.

You said nothing.

——————————————————————

Lo’ak came to you slowly.

It began with small things. Not intimacy. Not confidence. Observation.

You were the first among the Metkayina adults to acknowledge the Sully children’s progress without loading the praise with surprise or mockery. When Kiri held her breath longer than anyone expected, you told her so plainly. When Neteyam adapted his form in the water, you nodded once and said he learned fast. When Tuk followed Tsireya through shallow reef channels without fear, you crouched to her height and told her she was brave. And when Lo’ak took an ilu ride that ended ragged but stubbornly recovered, you caught him at the shore while everyone else focused on the larger lesson and told him “You corrected quickly. That's useful here.”

He looked at you then as if he did not know what to do with approval that had no sting hidden inside it.

After that, you caught him watching you now and again. Not often. Enough.

You did not go to him at once. Boys like Lo’ak could smell pity the way akulas smelled blood. He would have bolted from it. So you waited. You watched how Ao’nung needled him, how Neteyam shielded him when he could, how Jake’s discipline fell hardest on him and Neytiri’s worry sharpened around him until both could sound like disappointment if a child heard them at the wrong angle. You watched how Lo’ak learned to grin before the next blow landed, how he bristled before anyone touched the sore place because he had learned that if he bared his teeth first people mistook it for strength.

Then came the day Ao’nung and his friends crossed too far.

It played out near the waterline with enough witnesses to make it uglier. Rotxo laughed first. Ao’nung followed, circling the Sully children with that loose-limbed swagger boys wore when they believed the world had already decided in their favor. Tails. Hands. Foreheads. The mockery came quick and mean. Kiri’s expression closed. Lo’ak stepped forward at once, ready to start the fight that had already been offered to him.

You moved before he could.

“Ao’nung.”

Your voice cracked across the space hard enough that every child there froze.

Your son turned. Shock hit first, then defiance. He had expected adults to ignore it. He had not expected you.

“Mother—”

“No.”

The word came flat as stone. You crossed the sand until you stood between the two groups, not facing the Sully children at all. Facing him. Only him.

“What do you see when you look at them?” you asked.

Ao’nung lifted his chin. Around him, Rotxo and the others went still with the instinctive caution of boys who realized too late that the game had shifted.

He said nothing.

You took one step closer. “Say it.”

His jaw tightened. “They are not like us.”

The words struck with the force of memory because you had heard them before. Not always aloud. Not always with witnesses. But enough.

“No” you said. “They are not. And yet they are under our protection. They are guests. They are children. Is this how I taught you to carry strength?”

Ao’nung’s eyes flicked away for the briefest instant. Shame. Then anger, because shame rarely came alone at his age.

“They are freaks” one of the boys muttered from behind him, too quiet perhaps in hope of escaping notice.

You heard it anyway.

So did Lo’ak. So did Kiri. So did Tsireya, who had just reached the edge of the group and gone pale.

You felt the word land inside your own ribs like a thrown stone. For one terrible instant you nearly lost your hold on your face. Nearly let them all see exactly where it had struck. But you had stood through worse than a child’s cruelty, and this was not the moment to bleed.

Instead you looked at Ao’nung and said, very quietly “Then what does that make me?”

Silence.

Not one child moved.

Ao’nung’s eyes snapped back to yours, wide for one naked second before he forced them harder again. He had not expected that. He had not expected to be made to look directly at the bridge between what he had said and who you were.

“You are not—” he began.

But he had no ending for it.

You spared him none.

“You will not speak that way again” you said. “Not of them. Not of anyone under this clan’s shelter. If you do not know how to carry your rank with honor, then you will carry nothing. Go.”

He stood frozen just long enough to reveal the child still living inside the almost-young-man shape of him. Then he turned sharply and stalked off, his friends scrambling after him in uneasy silence.

The Sully children remained where they were.

You still did not look at them immediately. Your hurt was too near the surface. You knew if you met Lo’ak’s eyes just then you might show too much.

When you finally turned, Neteyam looked wary. Kiri looked as if she had understood far more than you wanted her to. Tuk only seemed confused. Lo’ak had that same braced expression again, like he did not trust good things not to twist into something else.

So you kept it simple.

“Go with Tsireya” you said. “Training is not finished.”

Tsireya stepped forward at once, relief and loyalty all over her face, gathering the others with the soft authority that came to her as naturally as tide.

Lo’ak lingered half a second longer.

You gave him one small nod.

He went.

Only when they were gone did you let yourself breathe.

——————————————————————

That night Ao’nung found you outside the marui.

The village slept in pieces, never fully. The sea muttered against the roots. Wind moved through hanging shells and fishbone charms with a sound like soft rattling breath. You had come out because you could not bear one more look, one more half-thought, one more silence from inside. You stood on a narrow platform over dark water and let the night keep your company while the tears you had denied yourself earlier escaped anyway, quiet and furious.

You heard him before you saw him. Young warriors always thought they moved more silently than they did.

“Mother?”

You swiped at your face before turning. He saw anyway. Of course he saw. Ao’nung had always been able to read your pain more quickly than Tsireya. He simply had less practice handling it.

He stood a little distance away, no longer broad with performance. Just young. Just your son. His shoulders had lost all their earlier swagger.

“I should not have said those things” he said.

His voice was low, roughened by shame he clearly hated. You waited.

“I should not have let them say them either” he added. “It was wrong.”

Still you waited.

Ao’nung swallowed. “I was angry.”

“Angry at children?” you asked.

“No.” He stopped, jaw tight. “At… everything.”

That at least was honest.

You looked back out over the water. Moonlight silvered the surface in broken bands. “Do you know why your words hurt?”

“Yes.”

“No” you said. “You know why they upset me. That is not the same.”

He flinched. Not visibly enough for a stranger. More than enough for you.

After a moment, you went on. “When you call them freaks, when you make their bodies into something to be mocked, you are not speaking only to them. You are speaking into a wound that existed before they arrived. A wound you have seen this clan touch in me all your life whether you named it or not.”

Ao’nung’s breathing changed. Slight. Tight.

“I know” he said.

You turned then and finally looked at him fully. “Do you?”

His face worked with things he did not know how to say. Defensiveness. Shame. Pride. Fear. The ugly confusion of realizing that someone could love you fiercely and still be disappointed in the shape you were taking.

“I did not mean you” he said at last, and it was the sort of thing a child said because he still believed intent could erase impact.

Your chest ached.

“I know” you answered softly. “But it doesn't erase that I still am lime them.”

Tears burned again. You despised them. You let none fall this time.

Ao’nung took a hesitant step forward. “I am sorry.”

This time, because it was him, because he had come on his own and because he was trying in the only way he knew how, you reached out. Your hand settled briefly against his cheek.

“I know” you said.

He leaned into the touch before he caught himself. The movement was small, almost involuntary, but you felt it all the same. It broke you a little more, because for all his sharpness and pride and the cruel stupidity of what he had done earlier, there was still something achingly young in the way he sought comfort before remembering he was meant to stand tall without it.

Your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his head before you could think better of it.

“Ao’nung” you said softly.

That was all it took.

Whatever stiffness had been holding him upright gave way at last, and he stepped into you with none of his usual swagger left, leaning his weight against you as if he had forgotten for a moment how to keep it all inside himself. You drew him in without hesitation, wrapping both arms around him and holding him close. One hand spread broad between his shoulder blades while the other rested at the back of his head, keeping him there with a gentleness that only made the ache in your chest deepen.

He did not speak. Neither did you.

For a little while, the two of you only stayed that way in the dark, with the sea breathing quietly below and the night moving around the edges of the platform. Ao’nung let himself be held in a way he would have denied wanting in daylight, all the sharp edges of him gone quiet for once. You pressed a kiss to his hairline and held him tighter for a heartbeat, as though that alone could soothe every place where disappointment had cut through both of you.

When he finally pulled back, it was slowly and with visible reluctance, his face turned partly away as if he could hide how much he had needed it.

You let him have that dignity.

He swallowed once, then straightened. “Goodnight, Mom” he said, voice rougher than before.

Your hand brushed briefly over his arm before you let him go. “Goodnight, baby.”

Only after he had disappeared back into the sleeping village did you stand there alone and let the thought come that you had been keeping away.

Ao’nung had been comfortable enough to say those things because he had heard their shape before. Maybe not in those exact words. Maybe not from Tonowari’s mouth. But from the clan. From whispers. From tones. From Ronal’s colder judgments uttered when you were not near enough to answer. From silences that let implication breathe.

And if Ao’nung had learned it there, if he had learned that such thoughts were sayable, then what had Tonowari and Ronal allowed to live around your children in all these years?

Worse still, what had they themselves believed and merely loved you enough never to say?

The question lodged like a hook and would not come free.

——————————————————————

After that, Lo’ak became a shape at the edge of your days more often.

He did not come to confide in you. Not yet. But he began staying back when the others ran ahead. He lingered after lessons under excuses that fooled no one. Once, while Tsireya helped Tuk with a breathing exercise and Ao’nung wrestled some challenge out of Rotxo farther down the reef, you found Lo’ak sitting alone on a low root with his feet in the water, staring out so hard at the horizon it looked like he was trying to force his thoughts into it.

You could have left him.

Instead you sat beside him without asking.

For a while neither of you spoke. Water moved around your ankles. A school of tiny fish flashed silver below. Somewhere overhead seabirds cried.

At last you said “You glare like your father.”

Lo’ak snorted before he could stop himself. “That’s not a compliment.”

“No” you agreed. “It is not.”

He glanced at you sideways then, suspicious amusement mixing with caution.

You let the quiet stretch again until he settled back into it.

When you spoke next, your voice was lighter than the weight of the question. “Did you want to punch Ao’nung?”

Lo’ak huffed. “Kinda always.”

“Reasonable.”

That earned you a real look. The first one not filtered through wariness.

You did not smile. Not much. Just enough.

A little of the tension left him. “You were really pissed.”

“Yes.”

“Because he was being a skxawng.”

“Yes.”

Lo’ak nudged water with one foot, watching the ripples. “And because of the other thing.”

There it was.

You turned your face toward the sea again. “Yes.”

He was quiet a long while after that. Then he asked, too casual to be casual “Does it bother you?”

You could have lied. You almost did. But something in the set of his shoulders stopped you.

“Of course it does.” you said.

Lo’ak looked down at his hands. Five fingers. Strong. Capable. Wrong, to some eyes. He flexed them once.

“Oh” he said.

It was such a small sound. Such a bare one. It carried more than any long confession would have.

You understood then, with a painful clarity, that no one had told him what he needed to hear. Not in a way that had sunk in. Not enough times. Not with the right weight.

So you spoke carefully, because some truths had to be laid in a boy’s hands like knives turned hilt-first.

“Listen to me, Lo’ak. The shape of your body does not lessen you. Not your hands. Not your tail. Not your face. Not any piece of you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make themselves feel pure by cutting someone else smaller. That is not truth. That is cowardice.”

He stared straight ahead. You were not certain he was breathing.

“You are Na’vi” you went on. “You are your father’s son and your mother’s son. You are yourself beyond both of them. You do not have to earn personhood from people who look at you and see only what is different. Do you understand me?”

Lo’ak’s throat moved.

“Maybe” he muttered.

“Then I will say it again another day.”

That made his mouth twitch a little. Not quite a smile. Near enough.

And because he was still a boy, because the ache in him had not erased the impulse to test, he said “You really think I’m perfect?”

“Nobody is” you said at once.

His head whipped toward you, offended.

You let him stew half a second before adding “You are loud, impulsive, and you make decisions like someone throwing knives blind in the dark. But none of that has anything to do with the body you were born into.”

Lo’ak barked a laugh so sudden it startled both of you.

You joined him. Very briefly.

From then on, he sought you more.

Not always alone. Sometimes he just drifted toward wherever you were helping set lines or checking spears or returning from a hunt, offering clumsy help he would never have offered before. Sometimes you found him with Tsireya and Tuk, and he was easy there, gentler. Sometimes he caught you between duties and asked sharp questions about fighting, or hunting, or how long it had taken you to feel like you belonged in reef water. Sometimes he said nothing at all, only sat near enough that the silence became company.

The Sullys noticed. So did your family.

Jake and Neytiri, to their credit, did not pry. You saw the awareness in Jake’s eyes, the cautious gratitude in the way he sometimes let Lo’ak drift toward you without calling him back. Neytiri watched too, more guarded, but she recognized help when she saw it. She simply did not know its shape.

Your own family did not have that grace.

Tsireya’s jealousy came first and hurt the least. She grew clingier in small ways, touching your arm more often, leaning against you when she spoke, asking if you would braid shells into her hair that evening or come see some little thing she had found in the tide pools. It was not suspicion. It was fear of displacement. You answered it at once, gathering her close whenever you returned home, pressing kisses to her forehead, telling her stories while you worked her braids loose and redid them, letting her fall asleep with her head in your lap when the nights grew longer.

Ao’nung’s came in the form of watchfulness. He did not mention Lo’ak directly. He simply observed too much and went sharp around the edges whenever he found you speaking to the Sully boy alone. Shame still sat between the two of you after his apology, not healed, only softened over. That made everything worse.

Tonowari and Ronal felt different.

They held it in. They trusted you, and because they trusted you they hated the feeling all the more. You could see it in what they did not say. Tonowari lingering longer after evening meals, listening when you spoke of training but not asking the questions beneath his quiet. Ronal watching your face when Jake’s name came up and then turning away before the glance could become accusation. Their discomfort did not come from believing you unfaithful. Not yet. It came from seeing parts of you open in ways they had never been invited into.

That was what jealousy often was at its core. Not fear of replacement. Fear of exclusion.

You almost understood it enough to forgive.

Almost.

——————————————————————

The fracture deepened before it broke.

You began hearing things you had never let yourself fully hear before. A pause in conversation when you approached. A woman on a fish platform lowering her voice just a breath too late. A boy saying something under his breath about sky-blood and getting hissed into silence by his sister. None of it new, perhaps. Only newly impossible to ignore once Ao’nung had put shape to it in front of you.

And Ronal, for all the love between you, did not help.

She was not careless with you. Never that. In private she touched you with certainty, trusted your judgment in battle, shared the weight of the children and the home and the clan’s expectations. But she had always kept a harder core than Tonowari, and in moments where the Sullys were discussed her words carried enough old disdain to stir every insecurity you had spent years trying to bury. She did not call them demons. She did not need to. A tone could do the work. A look. A certain refusal to separate strangeness from contamination.

Each time, you said nothing.

Each time, something in you bent a little further.

Then came the day you learned she had spoken more plainly when you were not there.

Not from Tonowari. Not from some dramatic confrontation. From chance. From walking behind a half-screened section of woven wall and hearing the tail end of a conversation between Ronal and two women who had come seeking her counsel. You only caught enough to understand. The Sully children. Their bodies. Their blood. The risk of letting too much of the sky-people remain in the heart of the clan. Ronal’s voice cool and unsparing. Not once your name spoken, but you heard yourself in every omission.

You left before they saw you.

That night you could not eat.

When Tonowari asked what was wrong, you said you were tired. Ronal looked at you too long and said nothing. Ao’nung picked at his meal. Tsireya chatted about some little thing from the reef until even she felt the heaviness and fell quiet.

You slept badly. When morning came, you threw yourself harder into your duties.

No one stopped you.

——————————————————————

The argument began with almost nothing.

That was the cruel part. The worst fights often did.

You had spent half the day with the hunting parties and the latter part of the afternoon checking on the younger trainees. By the time you returned to the marui, salt dried tight over your skin and exhaustion sat meanly in your bones. The family meal was nearly ready. Tsireya was helping set woven plates in place. Ao’nung was cleaning a spearhead with too much force. Tonowari sat mending something with hands that only looked calm. Ronal had her back partly to you, sorting herbs and shells for medicines, her profile sharp in the slanting gold light.

You entered and the shift in the marui was immediate, small but noticeable all the same. Tsireya brightened first, coming to you at once, and you kissed her forehead as naturally as breathing. Your hand rested briefly on Ao’nung’s shoulder as you passed, even though he did not look up, his attention fixed too carefully on the spearhead in his hands.

Tonowari’s eyes found you next.

He was seated near the center of the space, broad shoulders slightly bowed over the piece of mending in his hands, but the moment he saw you he straightened a little. Not enough to make it obvious. Just enough that you caught it. His gaze moved over your face in one quick, quiet check, as though measuring your tiredness, your mood, the weight you had brought back in with you from the day. When you paused near him, he reached out and let his fingers brush lightly over your wrist. It was a small touch, gone almost as soon as it happened, but it carried the kind of familiar care that long years built into instinct.

“You are late” he said.

There was no reprimand in it. Only notice.

“Work took longer” you answered.

Tonowari gave a low hum and let his hand fall away, though not before his thumb brushed once against your skin. “Sit when you are done. You have not rested enough these past days.”

Before you could answer, Ronal looked up from where she sat sorting herbs and shells into neat little groupings by her side.

Her expression was harder to read, as it often was when others were near, but you knew her too well not to catch the brief pause in her hands when you stepped fully into the marui. She looked at you for a moment longer than necessary, her gaze moving over the damp salt dried into your skin, the tension still holding across your shoulders, the faint exhaustion under your eyes. Then she clicked her tongue softly, almost under her breath.

“You pushed too far again" she said.

The words should have sounded sharp. From anyone else, they would have. From Ronal, they carried that familiar edge of concern dressed in sternness, the shape it most often took when she did not want to soften herself in front of the children.

You exhaled through your nose, too tired to fight the gesture for what it was. “I am still standing.”

“Yes, Ronal said, dry and unimpressed. “And you think that is always the same as being well.”

Tsireya hid a smile at that, clearly having heard the argument before.

For the briefest moment, your eyes met Ronal’s properly. Something quiet passed there. Not tenderness made obvious. Never that, not in front of everyone. But something steady and known, something that had lived in the spaces between the three of you for too long to need much dressing.

You shook your head faintly, more to yourself than to either of them, and moved at last to wash.

——————————————————————

It could have ended there.

Instead Ronal said, without turning “Lo’ak was looking for you again.”

The words were ordinary. The tone was not.

You stilled with water running over your fingers.

“I saw him” you said.

“Mm.”

That sound. Small. Dismissive. Heavy with all the things left unsaid.

You dried your hands slowly and faced her. “If you wish to say something, say it.”

Tsireya froze. Ao’nung’s head lifted. Tonowari’s hands went still over the mending in his lap.

Ronal turned then. Her face was controlled, but not enough. “You spend much time with him.”

“He needed guidance.”

“He has parents.”

The words landed harder than they should have because you had given your life to children who were not of your body and never once resented it. Because you knew exactly where your deepest insecurity lived. Because Ronal knew it too.

“So do ours” you replied, voice already sharpening. “Yet that has never stopped me from raising them.”

Tonowari looked up fast. “Enough.”

“No” you said without taking your eyes off Ronal.

Ronal set down the herbs in her hands one by one with terrifying care. “The clan sees. The people speak.”

“And you listen.”

Her nostrils flared. “I am Tsahìk. I hear what moves through my people.”

“You let it move.”

“That is not the same.”

“No?” Your laugh came sharp and ugly. “Then tell me, Ronal, when they look at the Sully children and see something tainted, something wrong-shaped, something less, do you think I do not know what else they are seeing in that moment?”

Tonowari stood. “Y/n—”

“DO NOT.” You barely spared him a glance.

The words came out so loud and raw that the whole marui seemed to freeze around them.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. No one even breathed properly. It was not only the force of it. It was the fact that none of them could remember the last time they had heard you scream at all, much less heard it turned on one of them. Not Tonowari. Not Ronal. Not the children. You were not gentle by nature, not always soft, but this was different. This was something torn straight out of the center of you, stripped of discipline and pride and every careful restraint you usually kept wrapped tight around your hurt.

Silence crashed into the marui so hard even the sea beyond seemed to retreat.

Ronal’s chin lifted higher. Hurt had reached her now, and pride arrived right behind it. “You are twisting this.”

“Am I?” Your voice rose. “Ao’nung did not learn those thoughts from water and wind. He learned them here. In this clan. In this home. In the things said when I am not present and the things not challenged when I am.”

Ao’nung jerked upright. “Mother—”

“Be silent.”

The words cracked out of you with a force that seemed to stun even yourself.

Ao’nung went still at once. So did everyone else. It was not simply that you had snapped at him. It was that none of them were used to this version of your anger, this loud, shaking, barely-contained thing that tore out of you without the usual control wrapped around it. You could be stern. You could be sharp. But this was different, and the shock of hearing it turned on him kept Ao’nung rooted where he stood.

Ronal’s eyes flashed. “You accuse me of turning my son against you?”

“I accuse you of feeding him poison and calling it caution.”

Tsireya made a strangled sound. Tonowari stepped between you by instinct, but you moved sideways before he could block the line of the fight.

The words struck. Not because they were true in the way she meant. Because some part of them touched something real.

Your face twisted, more wounded than angry for one naked second.

“Never offered you?” you shot back. “You speak as though you ever reached for them.”

Ronal went still.

You laughed once, harsh and shaking. “Do you know how many times either of you asked about where I came from? About the life before this one? About the language still living in my mouth? About the things I lost?” Your voice rose again, raw with old hurt now, with something far older than the Sullys and this argument and even the clan’s whispers. “You accepted that those parts of me existed, yes, but you never wanted to stand too close to them. Never wanted to know them unless they could be made useful, or small, or easy to set aside.”

Tonowari’s expression changed at that, guilt flashing through it before he could hide it.

You did not spare him either.

“I did not hide those pieces because I wished to keep you out,” you said, voice breaking around the force of it. “I kept them quiet because no one asked. Because no one looked at those wounds and wondered what they were made of.”

The silence that followed hurt worse than shouting.

You had kept those fragments hidden. Not maliciously. Not knowingly. But because pain went silent when no one around you shared its language and because the ones who claimed to love you had never truly learned how to ask for it.

“You think I would betray you for friendship?” you asked, voice trembling now with fury.

“I think” Ronal snapped, and now she was shouting too “that demons return to their own. I think perhaps you feel the pull of sameness and do not know it. I think perhaps that is why you go so often where you are reflected.”

Everything in you went cold.

Tonowari moved at once. “Ronal.”

But she was too far inside the blow already. You saw regret hit her only after the words were gone.

You stared at her. “Do you see me only as a demon, then?”

Ronal was breathing hard. Wounded pride, jealousy, fear, and years of buried prejudice had tangled too tightly to unwind cleanly. In that moment she chose anger because anger felt stronger than retreat.

“Yes” she said, in a voice that shook. “In this, yes. What else calls a mated woman away so often if not the demon in her? What else lets her laugh and sing and hide herself with another male as though the bond of her family is not enough?”

Tsireya began to cry.

The sound barely reached you. Your ears were roaring.

You stepped forward so fast Tonowari actually reached out to catch your arm and missed. “You dare” you said, each word raw. “You dare accuse me of cheating while standing in the home I built with my own hands. While speaking to the children I fed, bathed, taught, held. While wearing medicines I gathered and skins I cured and weapons I sharpened. You dare call me demon after I gave you every piece of my fucking life?!”

Ronal’s face crumpled for a heartbeat under the force of it, but you were beyond mercy now.

“You put those thoughts into Ao’nung’s mouth” you went on, voice breaking louder. “Do not deny it. He did not invent that cruelty. He learned from the contempt you carry when you think I am not looking.”

“I was protecting this family!” Ronal shouted back.

“By teaching our son to despise people like me?”

Ao’nung surged to his feet then, shaking with his own helpless rage and terror, too young and too proud and too frightened for either of you.

“Stop talking to her like that!”

You turned on him in disbelief. “To her?”

His chest rose and fell fast. “She is my mother.”

The words hung. Not wrong. Not enough.

Pain and fury made you crueler than you meant to be. “And I am what, then?”

Ao’nung’s face twisted. For a second you saw him realize the cliff edge. He stepped anyway.

“You are not even my true mother” he spat. “You are not my real parent.”

The world stopped.

There were sounds after. Tsireya sobbing. Tonowari barking Ao’nung’s name in horror. Ronal’s sharp inhale like she had been stabbed. But all of it came from very far away. What you heard most clearly was the split inside your chest. Clean. Final. A thing tearing where you had thought it had grown too strong to tear.

Tonowari crossed to you quickly, hands half raised. “Y/n, listen to me—”

“No.” You reeled back from him too. “NO. NOT ONE OF YOU.”

Tsireya ran forward then and you almost broke on the sight of her, but you could not stay. Could not breathe inside that marui another second.

You snatched up the nearest things that were yours. A wrap. A knife. Your bow. A small satchel hanging from a peg by the entrance. Tonowari called your name. Ronal did too, and hers sounded ruined now, but you could not hear anything except the echo of demon and not my true mother and the older, deeper voice inside yourself whispering the worst of all.

You could not even give them children.

Perhaps that was what had always sat beneath it. The old failure. The body that had crossed worlds and changed shape and still would not do this one thing the clan understood without question. You had told yourself for years it did not matter, because Tsireya and Ao’nung were yours in every way that counted. But pain was a scavenger. It dragged up every buried bone when called.

You fled before you screamed.

You climbed until your hands bled.

Not badly. Just enough for the sting to keep you in your body when grief wanted to blast you out of it. You left the clustered marui of the village behind, crossed a tangle of roots and tide-cut stone, and found one of the old trees farther inland where mangrove gave way to the slightly drier edges of forest. There, high above ground and water both, you wedged yourself into the cradle of thick branches and finally let the collapse come.

It was not graceful. It was not quiet.

You cried until your chest cramped and your throat felt flayed raw. You hit the trunk once with the heel of your hand hard enough to bruise. You cursed in English because Na’vi felt too sacred for the ugliness in you and because no one was there to hear Earth’s dead language anyway. Then you curled in on yourself with your forehead pressed to bark and shook like something hunted.

You thought of Ao’nung as a small child reaching for you from Ronal’s arms the first time he had chosen to come to you without prompting. You thought of Tsireya feverish and half asleep, her fingers tangled in your braid while you sat up all night cooling her skin with damp cloths. You thought of Tonowari holding you after hunts gone bad, of Ronal’s mouth at your shoulder in the dark, of every year you had given to this family, this place, this life built on the bones of another.

Then you thought of the clan’s eyes on you when the Sullys arrived. Of Ronal saying unlike us. Of whispers. Of silences. Of Tonowari never quite cutting them off. Of every time you had chosen gratitude over fury because love seemed more important than being right.

The night gave you too much room to think. Sleep would not hold for long, and every time you drifted close to it your mind kicked you back awake with something sharper waiting. So you lay there in the cradle of branches staring through gaps in the leaves at scraps of dark sky and let yourself wander somewhere crueler.

Your thoughts found Lo’ak because of course they did. Not just Lo’ak as he was now, all sharp edges and stubborn pride and hurt packed into the shape of a boy trying not to show where the world had bruised him, but Lo’ak as he had been when he was smaller, when his hands had still looked too big for the rest of him and his ears and brows and fingers had marked him out before he could even understand why people were staring. You thought of the way eyes lingered. The way silence changed texture around him. The way even kindness could turn ugly when it carried pity underneath.

And then, against your own will, your mind made the leap. If you had ever carried a child of your own here, if Eywa or fate or whatever force ruled these things had ever placed that life in your arms, would they have looked like that too. Would they have had your blood written into them in all the ways this world knew how to notice and punish. Five fingers. Strange bone structure. Some soft human wrongness visible beneath Na’vi skin. Something beautiful to you, maybe, because it would have been yours, because it would have been theirs, because love would have made every difference sacred. But not beautiful to everyone else. Not safe.

The thought hollowed you out in a new place. Because once it came, another followed it, quieter and somehow worse. Maybe Tonowari and Ronal had known. Maybe not in words, not in any deliberate, spoken way, but somewhere deep and practical and afraid. Maybe some part of them had always been relieved that no child had ever come from your body. Relieved that they had been spared the risk of loving a child the clan might look at the way they looked at Lo’ak. Relieved that they had been spared explaining your traits in the face of tradition, in the face of gossip, in the face of that old, ugly instinct to sort the acceptable from the strange.

You shut your eyes hard enough to see color behind them, but it did nothing. The thought kept gnawing. Not because you truly believed they would reject such a child once placed in their arms. That was what made it hurt in a different way. You knew Tonowari would have loved fiercely. You knew Ronal, for all her pride and sharpness, would have fought like a knife for anything she called hers. But love after the fact was not the same as wanting before the fact. It was possible to love deeply and still feel relief at being spared a harder road. Possible to adore you and still be grateful that you had not given them a child who would carry the most visible proof of what set you apart.

Your stomach turned. Suddenly the old grief was tangled with something meaner, more humiliating. It was one thing to wonder whether they had ever looked at you and seen difference they tolerated because they loved you. It was another to imagine they had looked at your empty hands, your empty womb, and thanked the stars in some quiet hidden corner of themselves that it had stayed that way.

You pressed the heel of your hand over your mouth to hold in the sound that wanted out. Below you, the forest breathed and shifted and remained indifferent. Somewhere distant, water moved against root and stone. You thought of Lo’ak again, of the set of his jaw every time he pretended he did not care, and something inside you cracked with a tenderness so painful it felt almost like guilt. Because if a child of yours had looked like him, you knew with horrible certainty that you would have loved them past language, past reason, past fear. You would have torn the world open with your bare hands before letting anyone make them feel lesser for it.

And that, perhaps, was the sharpest wound of all. That no such child had ever existed, and yet you were grieving them anyway. Grieving the possibility. Grieving the shape of a life you had never let yourself hold long enough to name. Grieving the chance that perhaps, somewhere under all this hurt, you had wanted more than you had ever admitted. Not just mates. Not just a place. Not just borrowed children who had become yours through devotion rather than blood. Something smaller and more dangerous. Someone who might have carried your difference openly into the light, forcing everyone around you to reveal exactly how much of your strangeness they could truly bear.

For a long time after that, you did not sleep at all.

——————————————————————

Morning did not fix anything.

That, perhaps, was the hardest part. Dawn came all golden over the water as if the world had not been split open. The village woke. Nets were lifted. Fish gutted. Children called to one another. Duties remained, indifferent to heartbreak. So did you.

You returned at first light only long enough to wash your face in cold water and tie your hair back properly. Then you went straight to your responsibilities. The hunters needed directing. Tracks from the night tides needed reading. Two younger warriors had argued over spear allocation. A net line had torn along one of the outer shallows and needed stronger hands to repair it before midday.

The clan saw you.

Of course they did. Word had already spread. You could feel it in the way voices lowered when you passed, in how no one quite dared ask anything. Their curiosity warred with the very obvious truth written in your face. So they watched instead.

Let them, you thought.

If they expected you to vanish because your heart had been broken in private, they did not know you at all.

By noon Tonowari found you near the storage platforms where dried lines and harpoons were kept. He approached alone, which was at least wise.

You did not turn when you heard him.

“Y/n.”

You kept checking a spear haft for warp.

He stopped a careful distance away. “Please.”

That made you laugh once under your breath. Not kindly. “You ask for gentleness now?”

Tonowari absorbed the blow without flinching. “I ask for a chance to speak.”

You finally looked at him then. He wore grief openly. Guilt too. It would have moved you yesterday. Today it only hurt.

“Where was this chance” you asked “when I needed you to stop the clan from looking at me like I was something lesser the moment the Sullys arrived? Where was it when Ronal spoke and let implication do its work? Where was it when Ao’nung learned those thoughts under our roof?”

His face tightened. “You think I don't know I have failed. I know I have.”

“Then let that knowledge keep you company.”

He stepped forward despite the warning in your posture. “I did not think—”

“No” you cut in. “You did not. That is exactly it.”

For a second you saw anger spark in him too, not at you but at himself, at the impossibility of saying enough. Then it died. He stood there broad and wounded and unable to mend with strength what strength had failed to protect.

“I love you” he said simply.

Pain sliced fresh through your ribs. “Then you should have protected me better.”

You walked away before he could answer.

——————————————————————

Tsireya came later.

Where Tonowari approached like someone handling a blade, Tsireya came like she always came to you: quickly, heart first, tears already threatening. You found her near the outer shallows because she had clearly searched until someone told her where you were. The moment she saw you, she ran.

You caught her automatically. There had never been a world where you would not.

Her arms wrapped around your waist so tightly it almost hurt. You dropped to your knees in the wet sand at once to hold her properly. She was crying before she even tried to speak. You kissed her forehead again and again, smoothing damp hair back from her face, murmuring broken comforts in Na’vi and half-English endearments that survived from a life she had never known.

“None of this is your fault” you told her. “None of it. Do you hear me?”

Tsireya nodded against your neck and cried harder.

You rocked her a little, because once upon a time that had been enough to calm every storm she brought to you. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I should have said something” she choked out. “I should have stopped them sooner. I saw Ao’nung growing mean and I thought he would soften. I should have—”

“No.” You tipped her face up until she looked at you. “You are not responsible for carrying what the adults failed to carry. Not you.”

Her mouth trembled. “Come home...”

That nearly broke you all over again.

You drew her in and held her. “I cannot” you whispered.

“Not ever?”

Your throat closed. You made yourself answer honestly. “Not yet.”

Tsireya nodded because she was kinder than anyone deserved and because she understood even when understanding hurt. She clung to you another minute, then let you wipe her face with your thumbs as if she were still little enough to fit entirely in your lap.

When she left, she looked back three times.

You watched every step.

——————————————————————

The family felt your absence exactly as you knew they would.

Not because you flattered yourself irreplaceable. Because every home had a rhythm, and you had been part of theirs for too long not to leave silence where your habits belonged. No second pair of hands to catch the small work before it fell. No evening rounds through the marui checking straps, medicines, children, weapons, weatherproofing. No body dropping tired beside theirs at the end of a long day. No one to laugh first when Tsireya made some bright joke. No one to sharpen Ao’nung’s practice blade after he had abused it against coral. No one to shoulder against Ronal while sorting herbs. No one to trade a quiet look with Tonowari across a crowded family meal.

Absence was never just emptiness. It was the shape of all the things that failed to happen.

Ao’nung felt it hardest after the first shock passed. Shame made him restless. Restlessness made him stupid. He trained too hard, snapped too fast, and once nearly got himself clipped by a reef edge because his focus was split in six directions at once. Tonowari hauled him out and cursed him senseless for it. Ao’nung took the scolding without fighting back because his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

Ronal carried hers more inwardly. She did her work. She led. She helped heal. She moved through the village with the same proud spine and uncompromising hands. But she slept poorly, and when she thought no one watched her eyes went to doors, walkways, platforms, the outer edges of the village where you should have been appearing any minute with wet hair and sea-salt on your skin and some tired complaint ready on your mouth.

Tonowari wore his like a stone tied around the chest. He had always been large enough to contain pain without spectacle. That did not make it smaller.

You did not see all of this firsthand.

You only saw enough to guess the rest.

And still you did not return.

——————————————————————

It was Lo’ak who found you on the second evening after the fight, though not by design.

You were coming back from the outer roots with a bundle of repaired line over one shoulder and a small catch looped at your hip when you spotted him sitting alone where mangrove shadows met the darkening water. He did not hear you at first. His posture gave him away before his face did. Folded in. Guard up. Something raw fresh in him.

You almost kept walking.

Then you remembered how it felt to be left alone with hurt large enough to swallow speech.

So you went to him.

He looked up fast when your steps reached him, visibly startled, then awkward. “Oh. Hey.”

You set the repaired line aside and lowered yourself onto the root beside him. “You choose lonely places.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Guess so.”

You studied him in profile. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Mm.”

Lo’ak huffed. “You do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing where you act like you already know I’m full of crap.”

“I do already know.”

He gave you a sideways look. Even in the gloom you could see the fight between pride and relief.

At last he muttered “Dad got on my ass again.”

“About?”

“Everything.” He kicked lightly at the water below. “The ilu stuff. The diving. Ao’nung. Me not thinking. Me thinking too much. Pick one.”

You listened.

“He doesn’t say I’m messed up or anything” Lo’ak said after a moment, staring hard at the darkness. “Not like that. He just… with Neteyam it’s always trust and expectations and all that warrior stuff. With me it’s like he’s waiting for the next screwup.”

There was no accusation in his voice by the end. That made it sadder.

“And your mother?” you asked.

Lo’ak shrugged again. “Mom loves me. She just…” He grimaced. “She just doesn't say he isn't right.”

You sat with that.

After a while you said “When people are afraid for someone, they often speak badly. They think fear will sound like discipline if they make the voice hard enough.”

Lo’ak snorted faintly. “That doesn’t make it suck less.”

“No” you agreed. “It does not.”

Silence. Then, softer, he asked “Did you mean it?”

You turned toward him. “Mean what?”

“What you said before.” He did not look at you. “About me.”

You understood.

“Yes” you said. “I meant it.”

Lo’ak swallowed. The dark hid his eyes, but not the tremor that went briefly through the line of his jaw.

“Okay” he murmured.

Nothing dramatic followed. No collapse into confession. No sudden ease. He only sat there beside you a little longer than before, and when you rose to leave he rose too and carried half the repaired line without you having to ask.

Sometimes trust entered by the smallest door.

——————————————————————

By the third night, the ache in you had sharpened into something cleaner.

Not less painful. Clearer.

You knew you could not keep sleeping in scattered places forever. You also knew you would not return to the marui only because they missed the space you filled in it. Missing you was not enough. Love was not enough. Not when love had left certain injuries untouched for years because addressing them would have required discomfort.

So when dusk deepened and your feet turned almost without thinking toward the old path that led to the spirit place the Metkayina kept near the inland meeting of root and freshwater, you let them.

The Tree of Voices. Mangrove-wrapped, sea-breathed, threaded with swaying tendrils that caught moonlight in pale glows. The place always quieted you. Tonight it only made you careful.

You saw Ronal before she saw you.

She floated near the top of the great tree, posture bowed in a way you had almost never witnessed from her. Not weakness. Pleading. Real pleading. It stopped you cold enough that your first instinct was to turn away before she looked up.

You pivoted.

“Please.”

Her voice cracked on the one word. You froze with your back half turned.

For a long moment neither of you moved. Then slowly, because running now would have been a kind of cruelty and because some exhausted, still-loving part of you could not do that to her, you turned back.

Ronal had risen to her feet. In the silver-blue light her face looked carved from grief. She came no closer until you allowed it by staying still.

“Do not leave” she said.

“I already left.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yes. You did.

The wind shifted. The floating tendrils stirred. Somewhere beyond the roots, water moved over stone.

You folded your arms hard across your chest. “You have words now.”

Ronal closed her eyes briefly. “I should have had them sooner.”

“That is not apology. That is observation.”

Her gaze came back to yours, wet and unshielded in a way that startled you more than any shouted argument had. “Then hear this. I was wrong.”

The simplicity of it hit harder than defense would have.

She took one slow breath. “I was jealous. I was afraid. I heard pieces of you I could not share and instead of asking for them, I made them suspect. I let the clan’s uglier thoughts sit too near me. I told myself I was protecting what was ours, when in truth I was protecting my pride. And when I was hurt, I used the cruelest words I could find because I knew where to wound you.”

Your jaw tightened so hard it hurt.

Ronal’s voice shook more now, but she did not look away. “No. I do not see you only as demon. I do not even see you as demon at all. I see my mate. I see the woman who has stood beside me through blood and storm and birth and grief. I see the one who raised my children as wholly as if they had first quickened under her own heart. I see the one I hurt because I was not strong enough to master my fear before it mastered my mouth.”

Pain and love and fury all surged at once so violently you nearly stepped back.

“You said it” you whispered. “You cannot unsay it.”

“I know.”

“You let those thoughts live around our son.”

“I know.”

“You let the clan’s whispers touch me for years.”

Ronal’s face crumpled. “I know.”

There it was. No defense. No reaching for context before accountability. It left you without the clean fuel of rage.

You hated that.

“And what of Ao’nung?” you demanded, because if you could not keep striking her, perhaps you could at least keep from softening. “What of Tonowari? What of the fact that none of you protected me where protection should have been simple?”

At that Ronal’s eyes filled properly and one tear slid down without her wiping it away. “Then do not forgive us yet.”

The words hit so unexpectedly you stared.

She took a step closer. Stopped. Waited. “Be angry. Stay angry. Ask more of us than one night of grief. But do not stay gone while we try to become better than the people who wounded you. Come where we can answer. Punish me with your honesty if you must. Not with your absence.”

Your throat worked uselessly around an answer.

Then Ronal, proud Ronal, fierce Ronal, lowered herself to her knees before you.

It was not dramatic. That made it worse. Better. Truer.

“I am asking” she said, voice almost breaking fully now. “Come back and let me mend what I can. Even if it takes long. Even if you do not touch me. Even if you do not call me beloved for many nights. Come back.”

Something inside you gave way then, not into easy forgiveness but into the terrible truth that you loved her still. Loved her enough that the sight of her bowed hurt almost as much as what she had done.

You crouched before you knew you meant to. Your hands found her face roughly, as if you could still be angry through touch. Ronal leaned into your palms with a shuddering breath.

“If you ever say those things again—”

“I will spend the rest of my life earning the right not to.”

You exhaled, shaking. “That is not how forgiveness works.”

“No” Ronal whispered. “But perhaps it is how atonement begins.”

For a long moment you stayed there, hand on her face, anger still alive and grief still raw and love refusing to die under either. Then footsteps sounded behind you, hesitant and stopping short.

Tonowari.

Ao’nung.

Tsireya.

Of course.

You looked over your shoulder. Tsireya was already crying again, though more quietly now. Tonowari’s expression was almost painfully careful, hope warring with the knowledge he had no claim to it. Ao’nung looked worst of all. Stripped bare by shame. Younger than he had in years.

He took two steps forward and stopped so abruptly he nearly stumbled.

“Mother” he said, and his voice cracked so badly you closed your eyes.

When you opened them, he was crying too. Not prettily. Not with dignity. Like a boy who had discovered too late that words could not be taken back just because terror came after.

“I was wrong” he blurted. “I was angry and stupid and I wanted to hurt and I said the worst thing I could think of because I knew it would hit and I hate myself for it and I know that is not enough and I know I am yours, I know that, I know it, and I am yours too if you still want me, please—”

He broke there.

Tsireya covered her mouth, sobbing. Tonowari looked away briefly as if the sight of his son’s grief struck somewhere too tender to witness directly. Ronal, still kneeling beside you, made no move to intervene. Wise again, for once. Let him say it.

You rose slowly and faced Ao’nung fully.

He flinched before you even touched him.

That nearly undid you.

“What you said” you told him, voice low and steady only by force “will stay with me for a very long time.”

He nodded frantically, tears falling. “I know.”

“You do not get to speak from pain and call the damage smaller because you did not mean all of it.”

“I know.”

“You are my son" you said, and his face broke open entirely. “You are my son whether blood says it, or the sea says it, or Eywa herself says nothing at all. But if you ever weaponize that wound again, I will not spare you for your age.”

Ao’nung was crying too hard to answer properly. He nodded anyway.

Then, because you were never not his mother no matter what you had told yourself in the dark, you opened your arms.

He came into them with a sound you would remember for the rest of your life.

You held him while he shook. Tsireya collided into both of you an instant later, wrapping herself around your side and pressing tear-wet kisses to your shoulder and jaw and temple as if trying to prove you were really there. You drew her in too. For a few breaths the three of you stood locked together, all pain and salt and forgiveness-not-yet-but-love-still.

When you finally lifted your head, Tonowari still had not moved.

You looked at him. “And you.”

His mouth almost twitched through the grief. “Yes.”

“You do not get to be the calm one and imagine that is enough. Your silence has teeth.”

Tonowari bowed his head once. “I know.”

“You should have stopped it long before now.”

“Yes.”

“You let me bear things alone because you thought surviving them meant I needed no shield.”

His eyes closed briefly.

You let him sit under that. Then, because he had owned it with the same painful honesty Ronal had and because love made monsters and mercies of all of you, you held out one hand.

Tonowari took it like a man accepting judgment.

When he stepped close, he did not pull you into him immediately. He only rested his forehead against yours and breathed. That hurt most of all. The restraint. The understanding that your anger still lived and had to be honored.

“I missed you” he whispered.

You shut your eyes. “Good.”

He laughed once against your skin, broken and relieved and miserable all at once. “Cruel woman.”

“Yes” you said.

That made Ronal huff a damp, half-laugh from where she had finally risen, and suddenly the impossible thing happened.

The pain remained.

So did the love.

They stood together and did not cancel each other out.

——————————————————————

You did not return to the marui that instant. You made them walk back with you slowly. You made them answer. Not every question. Not every hurt. But enough. Along the root-paths under moonlight you spoke of the clan’s whispers, of old wounds, of the ways love had not absolved them from confronting the ugliness around you. Ronal did not shy from hearing it. Tonowari did not hide behind leadership. Ao’nung spoke little after his apology, but every word he gave was honest. Tsireya stayed close enough to touch you every few breaths as if still making sure you would not vanish again.

By the time the family marui came into view, you were exhausted to the marrow.

The sight of home almost drove you back. Then Tsireya laced her fingers through yours and tugged very gently, and you let her.

Inside, nothing had changed and everything had. Your sleeping place remained as you had left it. Your things, the few you had grabbed, were not there because you still had them. Yet the air itself felt different. More careful. Less sure of itself. Good. Let it be.

Tsireya made you sit before you could decide not to. She brought water. Ao’nung, red-eyed and subdued, disappeared and returned with the wrap you had left behind days ago, folded more neatly than he had ever folded anything in his life. Ronal stood at the edge of the space as if uncertain whether approaching would wound more than soothe. Tonowari lit the low lamps and then simply remained near, visible, available, not pressing.

You looked at them and felt the ache all over again. You stood there for a long moment, looking at them all in the dim light of the marui.

Tsireya’s face was still wet with tears. Ao’nung looked wrecked by his own shame, all the sharpness gone out of him at last. Tonowari stood quiet and careful, as if one wrong movement might send you slipping away again. Ronal had not tried to come closer since your return, but her eyes had not left you once. The weight of everything still sat there between you, bruised and breathing, but it no longer felt like something that would swallow the whole family alive if no one spoke.

You let out a slow breath and looked away for a moment, gathering yourself.

“If I come back” you said at last, your voice tired but steady “then I will not return to silence. I will not come into this home and pretend nothing was said. I will not make myself smaller so the rest of you may feel more comfortable with what you have done.”

“No” Ronal said immediately, her voice low and rough. “You should not.”

Tonowari nodded once. “You will not have to.”

You looked at Ao’nung then, and some part of your chest still hurt too badly to soften fully, but there was room for something gentler now too.

“And you” you said quietly “will not hide from me when you are ashamed. You will face me. Do you understand?”

Ao’nung swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, Mother.”

That word nearly undid you again.

The silence that followed was not easy, but it was no longer cruel either. It simply existed, full of exhaustion and the remains of tears and the fragile uncertainty of people who had broken one another open and were now being forced to learn how to touch the wound without making it worse. For the first time since you had left, the marui felt less like a battlefield and more like a place where healing might someday be possible.

Tsireya was the first to move.

She stepped toward you slowly, as though afraid you might still pull away, and when you opened one arm for her she came at once, folding herself against your side with a soft, shaking breath. You wrapped her close and kissed the top of her head. She clung to you without embarrassment, pressing her face into your shoulder the way she had as a child whenever the world felt too large or too sharp for her soft heart.

“I missed you” she whispered.

Your eyes closed. “I know, sweet girl.”

Ao’nung lingered only a moment longer before he came too, slower than his sister had, more uncertain, but no less in need of it. He did not throw himself at you. That was not his way. He only moved close enough that you could reach for him, and when you did, when your hand caught his arm and pulled him nearer, the tight control in him gave with almost frightening speed.

You drew both of your children in against you then, one on either side, and held them.

For a while none of you said anything. Tsireya’s breathing gradually evened under your hand. Ao’nung stood tense at first, then slowly let himself lean just a little into your side, no longer pretending he did not need the reassurance of your touch. You kept one arm around Tsireya and the other around him, your fingers stroking once down his back before settling there. The simple familiarity of it hurt and soothed in equal measure.

Across from you, Tonowari watched with something raw and grateful in his face. Ronal looked quieter than you had seen her in a long time, her expression stripped bare by remorse and love and relief she did not seem to know what to do with.

When the children finally eased back, you were left facing your mates.

For a heartbeat no one moved.

Then Tonowari crossed the small distance between you in that same careful way he had worn since you returned, broad body held back by restraint rather than confidence. His hand came up slowly, giving you every chance to refuse him, and rested against the side of your neck. Warm. Steady. Familiar enough that it made your throat tighten.

“You do not have to forgive everything tonight” he said softly. “You do not have to be whole tonight either. Just stay.”

The words were so simple that they lodged deeper than any grand speech could have. You looked at him, at the honesty in his face, at the grief he had made no attempt to hide from you, and nodded once.

“I can stay” you said.

Something in him eased then, not all at once, but enough. He bent and pressed his forehead gently to yours, saying nothing more, and in that silence you felt apology, relief, and love all tangled together. It was not enough to erase what had happened. It was enough to remind you why leaving had hurt like tearing out part of your own bones.

When Tonowari stepped back, Ronal still did not move immediately.

Her hands were clasped too tightly in front of her, a rare tell from someone usually so composed. At last she came toward you, slower even than Tonowari had, and stopped close enough that you could see how red her eyes still were.

“I do not know how to touch you tonight without fearing I have lost the right” she admitted.

Your anger stirred again at that, but more tiredly now than before. “Then do not decide for me.”

Ronal’s breath caught.

You reached for her first.

The look that crossed her face at that was almost painful to witness. She stepped into you as soon as your hands found her arms, and the moment she was close enough you pulled her the rest of the way in. Ronal held herself tightly for all of one second before breaking and wrapping both arms around you with a quiet, shaking exhale that seemed pulled from the bottom of her lungs. You held her through it, one hand at her back, the other slipping up into her braids.

“I am here.”

At that, Ronal made the smallest wounded sound and held you tighter.

The rest came more quietly after that.

No more shouting. No fresh wounds. Just the family settling around one another in the weary aftermath of too much pain finally spoken aloud. Tonowari brought water. Tsireya, still reluctant to let you out of reach, sat pressed close to your side while Ao’nung fetched the wrap you had taken when you left and set it beside you with lowered eyes. Ronal insisted, in the old familiar way that was half command and half care, that you sit before your legs gave out under you. This time, when she said it, a faint thread of warmth lived under the sternness again.

You sat.

Slowly, naturally, the others gathered around you. Tsireya curled in first, leaning against you with her head on your shoulder. Ao’nung sat near your knee, not touching at first, but close enough that the distance no longer felt like rejection. Tonowari settled at your other side, one arm stretched loosely behind you along the woven supports, near without crowding. Ronal remained in front of you for a few moments, as if still confirming to herself that you were real and staying, before finally kneeling close and resting one hand lightly over yours.

No one rushed to fill the quiet.

That was what made it kind.

The sea breathed beyond the marui walls. Night sounds moved through the village in soft layers. The lamps burned low, throwing warm light over tired faces and damp lashes and shoulders slowly unclenching after days of strain. At some point Tsireya’s eyes drifted shut, her breathing evening out where she rested against you. Not long after, Ao’nung shifted closer in tiny increments until his shoulder brushed against your leg. He did it as if hoping no one would notice.

You noticed.

You said nothing, only let your hand settle into his hair for a brief, gentle stroke. Ao’nung’s eyes closed for half a second at the touch before he ducked his head. That alone told you how deeply he still needed to feel he was forgiven, and how young he still was beneath all the pride.

Tonowari reached for one of the woven blankets and spread it over all of you with the same quiet efficiency he brought to every act of care. Ronal watched him do it, then leaned in and pressed a small kiss to your cheek, so soft it barely seemed to land. You turned just enough to let your forehead brush hers in answer, and the relief that moved through her was so visible it made your chest ache.

By the time the night deepened fully, the marui had gone still around you.

Tsireya was sleeping against your side. Ao’nung had not quite fallen asleep, but he sat drowsy and quiet near your knee, no longer fighting his own need for closeness. Tonowari’s hand rested warm and solid over your ankle beneath the blanket, a grounding touch more than anything else. Ronal remained tucked close enough that your shoulders brushed, her presence careful now in a way it had not been before, as though she had finally understood how precious your trust truly was.

You looked at them and felt the ache still there.

Not gone. Not erased. Still bruised, still tender, still real.

But underneath it, and around it, something softer had returned too. Something stubborn. Something home-shaped.

Your family had hurt you. They had failed you. They would have to live with that and do better, and you would make certain they did. But they were still yours, and you were still theirs, and tonight that truth was no longer a weapon in anyone’s mouth. It was only a promise resting quietly in the dim light, wrapped in warm bodies and salt air and tired love.

but imagine how much of a nightmare it is dealing with other na'vi who have become comfortable with you and naturally become more touchy as a result.

someone placed a hand on your shoulder, and you flinch so violently they feel sorry, thinking they scared you, and they did! but not in the way they think. they're apologizing and you're waving them off, reassuring them

"no! no! it's completely fine! i know you didn't mean it!"

but it becomes very clear to your companions that it is indeed not fine. it still happens, someone touches you and you're jumping away. almost like their touch burned, and you feel terrible but you can't help it. touch has never been something you associated with anything good. and it's embarrassing enough having to explain to them that; "...i don't find it pleasant."

and one time, itu startled you so badly you swung at him.

"shit-- itu i'm so sorry" you cringe, accompanying him to his clan's hometree. it was closest compared to going back to the resistance base.

he's shrugging at you, finding it in him to laugh despite the buzzing pain. "it is fine, you have good reflexes."

and you're scolding him. "itu you have a nose-bleed and you're probably concussed as well."

"had worse." he shrugs, again.

"are you serious."

"i am one of the best hunters in my clan, but i've had my moments where i get injured, you know? this is nothing." he's smiling at you, as if trying to help you feel better. but you know it still hurts. you know your strength. and in your avatar body? god, you can only imagine how strong that punch was, especially on instinct.

you only glance at him, helping him to his hometree. when you stay quiet. he tries again. this time, an apology. "i really am sorry for startling you."

"don't." you sigh, shaking your head, not meeting eyes with him; more focused on getting him to Etuwa. "don't do that. it's my fault."

he doesn't say anything afterwards, only glancing at you as you walked, rushing with his arm around your neck.

and to your luck, etuwa was there, but so'lek was unfortunately there too. they were in the middle of a conversation when you arrived with itu leaning against you.

"what happened?" he asked, he's already squinting at you accusingly and you're cringing inwardly, guilty and he's sighing.

"...i punched him."

he stares. "why?"

"...i--"

"i scared them." itu interjects, saving you from having to explain yourself much to your surprise. so'lek glances at him, then at you. eyes narrowed again. "you dreamwalkers are quite jumpy."

"it is just them." so'lek huffs, shaking his head. "alma is nowhere near this reactive."

you almost look offended. ugh, this is why you hate being around him. "you try getting killed every time you're out and about in a foreign planet then." you mutter out, crossing your arms.

so'lek gives you a look. "my race is not very interested in invading a foreign planet." he says this in english, so only you would understand, he knows he's taking this too far and that it's not fair. yet when it comes to you, he can't help it; you aggravate him in more ways than one.

and you on the other hand, your mouth falls open at that. but then again, he's got you there. "okay, fair enough, i walked into that. but what the hell do you want me to do? not jump every time i hear someone come up behind me? first thing you tried doing was try to kill me when i first met you! do you know how terrifying it is having someone's knife at my throat when i was just collecting samples?"

by this point, you were speaking in english as well. itu does not understand the words said, just that it was getting a bit heated. he feels like he contributed to the conversation going this way somehow. etuwa, who was tending to him, just listens in. while she doesn't understand what you're both saying either, she does finds your interactions...interesting.

"you were wearing an RDA uniform, how do you expect any of us to react? did you think i was going to ask if you were one of ours?"

"i was blending in in case there were RDA soldiers! and i was talking to tamtey through the comms! you were also tuned in that frequency! you didn't question one bit on why there was a fucking echo???" you pull a face, finding him unbelievable.

you and so'lek go back and forth in the tawtute language. whatever so'lek was saying was short, blunt, you on the other hand, your words spilled out of you, bloated, like the Rimo’a creatures that allows the ships of the Tlalim clan to float so high up in the sky.

you look increasingly agitated each time so'lek throws something in the exchange. you're exhaling through your nose as your eyes narrow, sharp. like daggers. and he returns it, albeit with less intensity. if looks could kill, neither na'vi present would know who killed who. just that it would be bloody.

then something flashes across your eyes after so'lek throws something in again. you're glancing to the side, posture leaning back as you cross your arms, a bit more relaxed, so'lek scrutinizes you for this, confused. it was clear that was not the reaction he was expecting from you. your voice now lacked the initial edge as you throw something in return.

whatever it was, it somehow pissed so'lek off to no bounds, he reacted quick, swiping at you, and you were just as quick dodging him, avoiding his reach. you're laughing now shrugging. and so'lek is saying your name, in a tone that was meant to be taken as a warning.

and you, ever the elusive you, were dancing circles around him, taunting him of course, what makes it worse for so'lek, and what makes it more entertaining for whoever was watching this interaction, is you were sticking your tongue at him, making faces.

"you are like a child!" so'lek says finally in the na'vi language, exasperated, spinning to get you somehow, he doesn't even know what he's gonna do once he grabs you.

"treat me like one, you get one." you grin. it was impressive really, you're very good at avoiding his reach. all thanks to your dislike towards being touched, and likely your training that was designed to fit your combat style.

then you say one last thing in english, shrugging.

and that has so'lek stilling, staring at you. you in turn grin wider. you're glancing at itu and etuwa. "see you guys later. gotta go!"

and you're off. so'lek finally snaps out of whatever it was after processing what you said. and yells your name, again, pissed. you don't look back when you make your escape run away, laughing maniacally to yourself. laughter fading into the distance once you go deeper into the tunnels.

so'lek on the other hand was only able to take a few steps after you before giving up, agitated.

"somehow, watching those two energizes me." etuwa's laughing to herself as she shakes her head, focused back on treating itu. itu glances away, humming. he finds you amusing, that much can be said.

"they are quite interesting." itu comments. so'lek overhears that.

"insane." he corrects him. "they are insane." so'lek huffs after stalking back to the two. itu can't help but agree on that. then he's back to talking to etuwa once she asks for more on what happened. so'lek on the other hand, listens in, quiet as his eyes went to where you last made your exit.

he's sick of reader's bullshit ur honor

The sun was at its peak when you were called to join Tonowari and Ronal the next day, and you were surprised to find the one and only Jake Sully off to the side, talking with them in low tones.

He looked at you as you came over and straightened, uncrossing his arms. By habit, instead of reaching a hand out for you to shake, he gestured to you in the traditional Na'vi way — fingers to his forehead, sweeping out, saying your name.

"You know me?" You questioned, brow furrowing. A bit delayed, you copied his greeting.

He shook his head a bit. "Only as much as these guys told me."

Oh. That was a bit embarrassing.

Floundering, you rubbed the back of your neck. "Right. Um…"

Fuck. What did you say to a man like Jake Sully? He was a living legend, and the RDA's most wanted fugitive. You saw his face plastered on walls and tablets alike, listing him as dangerous, wanted dead or alive. Avoid like the plague, contact the number provided on the posters.

Sensing your internal panic, Tonowari stepped in. "He will be coming with us to talk to the tulkun. His wife, as well."

"How come?" You asked.

"We need the tulkun to fight with us," Jake said. "They're passive now, but we're hoping we can get them to join the battle. For their own sakes."

You pressed your thumb into the center of your other palm, deeper and deeper until it hurt.

You wondered if it was possible. If it'd ever be possible.

You wondered this as you rode with Tonowari on his skimwing, clinging to his midsection. You wondered it as you came to a floating rock, which Tonowari helped you climb onto after Jake and his mate did.

Stillness surrounded you, on this shallow, floating rock. Not peaceful; an eerie muteness, the kind that came before a vengeful storm.

As you looked around, your heart pounded in your chest, against your ribs. Anxiety gnawed at you, your bones, your spirit. Your hands trembled at your sides, and you curled them into tight fists, pressed into your thighs. It was far scarier than when you ran to the village to warn the Metkayina of the oncoming attack. It was bigger than you — any of you.

An energy disrupted the lull, and your head snapped toward movement under the water.

Gigantic, colossal beasts emerged from the sea, rising and rising and rising toward the sky, the sun that lethargically drifted to its spot behind Polyphemus.

You sucked in a sharp gasp, whipping around as you heard more arrive. They towered over your group, incomparably mighty to the tulkun you had seen. They eclipsed the sky, casting shadows as large as them, harsh and encompassing. Like their reef Na'vi counterparts, they bore tattoos along their monumental bodies, but the one in the center differed in that impressive rings were pierced into its mouth, hanging in chains to connect further down to other piercings. Massive swaths of red fabric draped from the piercings, too.

The matriarchs.

Tonowari waved a hand at you for you to kneel, and you dropped down, afraid to insult them.

"Go. Tell them. I will translate," he said, motioning tersely to the great creature.

You swallowed thickly and cleared your throat, your trembling worsening. Now or never.

"Matriarchs," you called out, maybe too loudly. From your peripherals, you saw Tonowari signing your words to them. "I come bear— bearing a warning. The R— the humans, sky people, they plan to attack you. They will attack the tulkun during calf communion."

A rumble rippled through you, powerful enough to shake your ribs, knock you back onto your haunches.

"They want to kill you," you coughed out.

Jake took over.

"Great Matriarch," he summoned them, Tonowari following his every word. His voice was stronger than yours, more confident, more serious. "Wise elders. The sky people are coming. Here, today. Right now."

He took a breath.

"To kill our tulkun families."

The words bit at your heart like daggers, sharp tips piercing soft, vulnerable flesh.

"I beg you," he continued. "Fight with us."

The Matriarch thought on his request, then vocalized an answer in return.

Tonowari translated for her. "She said, 'we respect Toruk Makto, but our ways are ancient'." The Matriarch rumbled again, and he continued, "'We believe that killing will only bring more killing, in an endless, expanding spiral'."

Jake grit his teeth, his tail lashing behind him. "Hear my words. The Sky People will never stop. Not until the last of the tulkun is hunted."

The Matriarch bellowed, then began to slap her fins against the water, the others following suit.

Spooked, you looked around, and spotted… someone riding in upon a much smaller tulkun. Multiple someones, in fact, all children, teenagers.

"Lo'ak," Neytiri said, gasping.

Lo'ak's — the one at the front, you presumed — tulkun trilled, a pleading sound.

The Matriarch responded, slapping her fins harder. Without Tonowari to translate, you were completely lost.

"Stop!" Lo'ak shouted. "Stop."

"Lo'ak, what are you doing?" Jake growled out. "You can't be here."

"Dad," his son begged. "Dad, wait." To the Matriarch, he said, "I am Brother of tulkun. I have a right to speak."

A girl piped up, defending him. "Lo'ak speaks the truth. You must listen."

"Tsireya!" Tonowari yelled.

The eldest of the tulkun bellowed.

Tonowari frowned. "She says, 'his Brother is outcast'." He turned to Lo'ak. "You have no standing here."

Lo'ak's nose scrunched. "If he is outcast, then I am outcast."

"And I am outcast," Tsireya followed.

Ronal balked. "Daughter, silence."

"No!" Tsireya cried out. "You will never see me again."

You saw as fear, true and primal, struck Ronal.

Another boy piped up, "And I and my Brother are outcast."

"Ao'nung," Tonowari barked.

The last tailed the rest. "And we are also outcast."

Ronal put a hand to her chest, breathing shakily.

Behind you, the Matriarch clicked.

Tonowari took in a breath. "She says, 'you may speak'."

Like his father, Lo'ak started, "Hear my words. My Brother returned to his birth clan to defend them, but his clan was wiped out by the demon ships. Only Ta'nok survived, because she fought back!" He looked to the side, bidding one to join. "Come forward."

A tulkun that stayed submerged rose up and drifted inward.

You slammed a hand against your mouth to suppress a choke.

She, Ta'nok, was covered in scars, deep wounds that serrated her flesh until it could not heal over fully, exposing the pink of her inner body. Several spears stuck out of her back, and—

Her eyes. They were gone.

You tilted your head to the sky, fighting to restrain the tears that flooded your waterline and blurred your vision.

Ta'nok wailed.

With a heavy heart, Tonowari interpreted. "Ta'nok says, 'I speak for the dead mothers and the dead calves. I speak for my people and all our Songs'."

Ta'nok wept, mourning.

"'Gone'." Tonowari exhaled roughly. "'Forever'."

The Matriarch blinked slowly, silent.

Ta'nok proceeded, begging.

"She says, 'I am the last. The blind witness to our end'."

You could see the tears that filled his own eyes, how his throat dipped, a swallow to keep himself steady, resolute.

He sniffled, sitting up. "Ta'nok says, 'the tulkun way must change. Payakan shows our path'." Quieter, after her plea, he repeated for you, "'We must fight'."

Lo'ak echoed, louder. "We must fight!"

The Matriarch rumbled, then the elders began to descend beneath the water.

Panicked, you glanced at them as they retreated, a hand to your sternum. Did you fail? Was that it?

"What did she say?" Jake asked.

Ronal answered. "They will decide."

You pressed your lips together, your tears spilling.

In muteness, you returned with your group to the village, wondering what you could have done different, if there was something to be done differently. It wasn't an outright rejection, but it wasn't an agreement, either. A limbo you feared you'd fall into and never resurface from.

While you were gone, the clan had moved, relocating to a cave closer to where the communion was set to happen.

Where the attack would occur.

You were ushered toward the back of the cave and commanded to help the healers, who gave you tasks of their own. Specifically, Makani was the one ordering you around. Older and wiser than the rest, the others looked to her.

"Kämunge fay," she handed you a large bundle of gauze rolls. "Io tsatseng."

Despite the language barrier, you did as instructed, mostly following visual cues. Carry this here, bring this to her, go with so and so to gather herbs whose names you repeated over and over to yourself, hoping to memorize them.

Women sat in a circle sang together, working fibers into nets, bandages. Roots were ground into paste and covered with leaves. Fruit was cut open, or freed from a thick shell, juice collected inside a thick gourd. Sat to the left of Makani, she passed you dense cords of rope to knot and loop into a basket.

The song itself wasn't morose, but their rhythm was somber, words slowed and sung from deep in the chest.

Brows furrowed, you mouthed along, picking out bits and pieces. Words that repeated, that maybe you could replicate.

Makani noticed.

She observed as you fumbled over the sounds, the pronunciations, under your breath. She moved closer to you, and your mouth closed, ears tilted back. Warmth bit at your cheeks, the urge to apologize overwhelming—

"Ftu."

Your eyebrows pinched together. "What?"

"Ftu," she drew out the word.

It clicked. She wanted you to copy her.

"Fuu," you tried.

She huffed through her nose, the corners of her lips twitching. "Ftu."

"Ftu."

"Srane. Ftu ngeyä…"

"Ftu n— neyyyah?"

She opened her mouth and showed you how her tongue shifted to the back of her throat, covering it as she pronounced it, "Ngeyä."

Oh. Oh, that— that made sense.

"Ngeyah."

"Ä, ke a."

"Ngey…ä. Ftu ngeyä."

She grinned wide, nodding in approval. "Ftu ngeyä txe'lan."

She went slow as she taught you, showing you far more patience than you deserved. Whenever you messed up, she lightly corrected you, and showed you how she did it.

Tx took you a bit to learn. You had click your tongue against the roof of your mouth to make the correct sound. Kx was even worse, the click happening in the back of your mouth. Your attempts earned you a few snickers, but Makani maintained her patient instruction, letting you take your time.

"Ftu ngeyä txe'lan," You sang as she taught you. "What does it mean?"

Setting down the herbal remedy she was working on, she placed a hand to the center of your chest, on your sternum.

"Txe'lan," she said.

"My chest?" You mumbled, piecing it together. Then, your brows raised in understanding. "My heart? Txe'lan is heart?"

To confirm, you put your hand over hers and tapped it in a beat of two. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

She smiled. "Ngeyä txe'lan lu txur."

You copied her, saying it back. Fond, she brushed her hand over your shoulder, and went back to teaching you the song. Having no way to translate what she said, you were left wondering what she meant. At least you knew heart, now.

Txe'lan… what a pretty name for it.

A horn blew, and you lifted your head, confused.

At the mouth of the cave, warriors were mounted on skimwings (tsurak, Makani called them), lined in rows. Ready for battle.

Your teeth dug into your lower lip, chewing into the dry skin. You wished, more than anything, that you could do more to help, but the closest thing you had to any form of combat training was the movies you'd seen back on Earth.

You hated this feeling, this self-directed disgust. It dissolved the fragile lining of your stomach, bled into your veins, trickled into your marrow. It ate you alive, carving a place for itself in the core of your being, a throne of hatred and insecurity and diffidence. It spun a web, invisible and sticky, a predator setting an inescapable trap for its prey.

"Ayfo lu ne salew wem," Makani said, "ulte tìhawnu si ayfo. Tulkun aysmukan ulte aysmuke."

The war had come.

A quiet sort of chaos bloomed in the cave. Those left behind moved back and forth, preparing for the inevitable influx of injured warriors as the battle waged. It took less than an hour for the first of them to arrive.

The singing cut out, replaced by Na'vi yelling to each other, communicating. Warriors were brought in on makeshift gurneys, carried over shoulders, or dragged across the soil, healers racing from person to person to treat each as they came. A man screamed as stringy fibers were lodged into a bullet hole on his side. A woman fought against the healers, eager to return to the battle in spite of the gash running from her left shoulder to her right hip.

You—

You were stuck in place, frozen, unsure of how to help, what to do. Your heart thundered in your throat, clogging it, making it difficult to breathe.

What do I do, what do I—

Makani grabbed your arm, her face severe. "Za'u!" She shouted, and ran toward an opening at the side of the cave.

Unthinking, you went after her.

You took the path she did, nearly tripping along the way, your body unused to traversing the rocky terrain. Water spray hit your thigh and hip as you skidded outside, where two others were helping a hunter off of tsurak. He had a nasty wound on his back, and a metal harpoon spear had lodged itself in his upper arm.

"Mawey!" Makani said. "Munge tsamsiyu fìtseng!"

You ran into the shallow water, skirting around the tsurak (i.e. jumping over its tail) to get to the opposite side, where the warrior's foot had gotten stuck in the saddle.

The tsurak squirmed and thrashed, forcing you to cover your face so it wouldn't spray it. "It's okay, it's okay," you told it, a hopeless plea for it to calm down. Getting between its wing-like fins proved a lesson in futility in avoiding getting wet, and you clenched your jaw, lunging forward to reach the saddle.

You yanked the leather, allowing the healers to pull him free. The tsurak, sensing its rider was gone, slammed its tail harshly and kicked off into the water once more.

Wading through the water, you reached for the hand held out to you, fingers brushing.

A whistle sounded overhead.

One second, there was an impossibly bright light.

The next, you crashed into the sea, liquid barely having time to move out of the way. It enveloped you, drowned your senses until there was a swirling blackness you couldn't discern up from down in. A terrible bellow followed after the lightning, a thunderous roar that rattled your skeleton, left your ears ringing in pain.

Somewhere in the depths of your subconscious, you were aware that an explosion happened.

It detonated against the wall of the cliffside the cave was hidden under, and its shockwave blew you into the water, a temporary, entire loss of stimuli, a flickering in your brain as your head hit the water. Whether unconscious for a second or a minute, you were beneath the waves, dazed, floating along the brash current.

Your body twitched, sensation returning to your limbs one by one, yet true feeling remained elusive.

You were descending, lower, lower, clutched too tightly in vise you could not escape from. It sat on your breastbone, a gentle, downward push, encouraging you into a squeezing pressure that compressed your ribcage, threatened to puncture your hollow lungs with sharp bones.

Above you, flames dance on the surface, refracting into odd, geometric shapes. They broke apart and recombined, fibers split from a weft, then brushed back into a solid entity.

It mesmerized you.

Beautiful, in an otherworldly way.

Your fingers fluttered, longing to touch the fire, feel its warmth in this all-devouring frost.

To your side, glowing movement caught your attention.

You slowly turned your head, and saw yellow fish darting back and forth, their bodies illuminating the dark space around them. They led and followed each other in equal measure, traipsing their way to you. They circled you, then sprang away, back and forth. Some nudged your cheeks, your arms, your tail. They nipped your ears and toes until you chose to lazily, languidly, lethargically trail after them.

Weakened, you could only go so fast. They acted impatient, tickling your spine, the soles of your feet. You kicked in response, propelling yourself forward.

Up ahead, you could barely make out the shape of… something. Large, reaching too down to see how deep it went. Your hands contacted rough stone, and the fish dispersed, leaving you alone.

You broke through the water, coughing violently and wetly, sucking in chestfuls of air. You tasted the salt in your esophagus, the rough scratch of it on the sensitive mucosal lining of your nasopharynx. You lugged yourself ashore, knees and elbows scraped by the raw rock.

You were alive. Somehow, by some miracle, you survived the blast.

And… and the fish led you to safety. Or, relative safety, where you had a chance to recover.

Shaky, fawn legs climbed under you, joints protesting as you forced yourself to stand. You choked out excess mucus, spitting its salty adhesiveness onto the stones.

Looking around, you saw the fight blazing on the horizon, a massive battleship getting sucked into the flux vortex. Its hull was being torn apart, large chunks of paneling shooting into the sky.

Tulkun, too, were fighting.

They breached and twisted, landing their solid, heavy bodies onto smaller ships and boats, submerging them into a grim fate.

Then, to your right, you heard gasping.

You whipped your head towards it, and the world dropped out from under you.

Ronal was propped up against the rocks, a hand cradling her rounded stomach, the other clutching at a spear lodged in her collarbone.

You staggered towards her, her name leaving you in a frail, gravelly croak.

Kneeling beside her, she told you in no uncertain terms, "I am dying."

"No," you whispered. No, it— it wasn't possible, it wasn't.

Ronal was unbreakable, a fortress. Her castle walls touched the sky, their palisades sharpened into piercing points that would bleed out any enemy that dared approach.

"I am dying," she hissed. "But not before I deliver this baby."

You jolted into action, a puppet on strings, an unspeaking being telling you what to do.

Positioning yourself between her legs, you propped her foot up on your thigh and held the other open, tearing strips of her loincloth out of the way. She groaned, head tilting back to expose her throat as her stomach contracted.

You didn't know what drove you to help her. You didn't know what you were doing at all, but instinct steered you.

"I see it," you said, the babe crowning. "Push."

Ronal panted, and gave her all. Her strength was dwindling fast, too fast, and you clasped your fingers around hers.

"Again," you bid. "Again!"

For the first, and possibly last time, she listened to you.

With a cry, she pushed, and you quickly went to catch her baby.

Jesus, it was so small. A crumb. A new life.

You placed the newborn on Ronal's chest, supporting her arms as she held her baby.

"A girl," you said. "It's a girl."

Ronal shuddered, breathing shaky, uneven. "Pril. Her name is Pril."

Hazy eyes found yours, her pupils blown wide, lids heavy.

"You will protect her?" She asked you.

Whether it was out of trust, or because you were the only one present, it didn't matter.

"I promise," you vowed. "I'll protect her. I'll keep her safe. I'll get you back."

Ronal shook her head. "No. It is time for me to go. I cannot…"

You caught Pril a second time as Ronal went lax, her voice drifting off as she did. Cursing, you took the strips of fabric you'd ripped off Ronal's loincloth and made a shoddy, but functioning sling from them, one-handed at that. As soon as Pril was secured, you stood, and grabbed Ronal's arm on her uninjured side.

Grunting, you hauled her up, feet slipping on the wet rocks. She weighed too much for you, but you endured, resisted the gravity that threatened to splinter the joints in your knees.

"I will not let you die," you growled at her. Pril cried on your chest, and once you had Ronal's arm securely wrapped around your shoulder, you encased Pril's back in your palm, keeping her close as you bore Ronal's unconscious, slack weight, one step forward, the next, again, again, again.

The skerry you were on connected to the cave via a thin, submerged sand bar. Seconds, minutes, hours passed as you carried both Na'vi, your breaths coming in erratic, spasmic heaves.

At the edge of the cave, your voice echoed, breaking at its edges.

"Help!" You screeched, pleading, desperate. "Srung!"

The adrenaline could only carry you so far. You could feel Ronal's weight beginning to bring you down, your feet fumbling beneath you, slipping on the wet .

"I need help!" Tears were flowing down your cheeks, their paths searing you. "Please. Please, someone help me."

Just as you felt your knees were going to buckle, the dead weight becoming too much for you, it was lifted. You sobbed in relief, able to wrap both your arms around Pril's tiny body, cradling her to your chest.

Na'vi surrounded you, frenetically assessing the state of their tsahìk. Orders were shouted. One girl pressed a hand to Ronal's sternum, stock still.

"Po rusey!" She yelled.

All at once, havoc erupted. Multiple people helped carry Ronal, running towards the pop-up healing huts as quickly as they could without jostling her.

No sooner than you had been surrounded were you alone once more.

Only then did your knees give out, hitting the stone with a resounding crack. You hardly noticed the pain.

Pril fussed, wailing with all the might of her extraordinarily small lungs, squirming. You crushed her to your chest and cried, your face contorting from the effort.

"Oh, baby," you wept, pressing your ear to her head, bringing her to rest against your collarbone. "Oh, babygirl, my baby."

You cried, sat alone until someone came to retrieve you.

Tsireya.

Her eyes were wet, red-lined, brows furrowed, but she kept her tears at bay.

She knelt in front of you, her hands settling on your biceps.

"She lives," she whispered to you. "Because of you. You saved her."

You drew in a shuddering breath, and Tsireya sat patiently with you, not rushing you. She let you take the time you needed to calm down, for your cries to reduce to stuffy sniffles. As you calmed, so did Pril, sensing your heart slowing down and your breathing balancing.

"I can take her," Tsireya said, moving towards Pril.

She'll take her from you.

Panicked, you jerked back, causing the girl to blink in surprise.

"No," you rasped. "No, I c-can't. I can't. I'm sorry, I— I promised."

Her lips parted in understanding, and she nodded. "Okay. Okay, it is okay."

You exhaled, a leaden release from your core, and the exhaustion slammed into you like a massive wave, towing you under.

Saying no more, she helped you rise, her hands on your elbows as she walked backwards, guiding you further into the cave the village tucked away into. She led you into a different hut, the inside almost stiflingly warm. You sat down by the smoldering fire, instinctively rocking Pril.

Again, she reached for Pril, but did not take her. "May I?"

You opened and closed your mouth, resisting the urge to squeeze Pril tighter.

Seeing your reluctance, she clarified, "I will not take her from you. But I must check to make sure she is healthy. Only that, I promise."

You gnawed on your lip, looking down at the infant. She was so small, barely the size of both of your hands. You knew it was for the best to let Tsireya examine her, make sure there was nothing wrong, but it was hard to turn off the part of your brain screaming to never let her go.

Tentatively, you passed the baby over, obsessively ensuring her head was supported. Tsireya smiled at you placatingly, and rose, walking to a nearby mat.

For the moment, you slumped, exhaling a heavy breath. It came from deep inside, wrested from your very core.

It was all beginning to get to you, this all-devouring weight.

The adrenaline crash was brutal, winding you, and all you could do was sniffle and wipe at your eyes and nose with shaking, sore, tired hands. Your stomach clenched with nausea, being separated from Pril, but you tried to reassure yourself that she was right across the hut, not even ten feet away.

You watched, world-weary and beat, as Tsireya checked over her baby sister. She bent each of her little limbs at the joints, testing their range of motion. Skilled fingers massaged her tummy, feeling for any internal abnormalities.

Pril made small noises of discomfort, but did not cry or wriggle too much. Tsireya snapped her fingers beside each of Pril's ears, the appendages twitching at the noise in reaction.

Seemingly satisfied, Tsireya picked her up, and brought her back to you. Grateful, you took her again, immensely relieved to feel her featherlight weight settled on your arms.

"You must rest," Tsireya urged.

Once more, you sighed, peering down at Pril. The little one shifted, getting comfortable, then let out her own sigh. You smiled tiredly at the sound.

"Okay," you responded, too drained to fight.

The young girl helped you scoot over towards an open spot in the hut, tucked out of the way. She put down a fur hide for you, and propped up a few rolled up mats behind you for you to lean on.

"I will bring milk to feed her," she promised. You hummed in acknowledgment, and the girl rose up. She gave you one more worried, hesitant look, then left.

Fuck.

What were you going to do?

For some time, you sat with that thought, the words bouncing in an echo chamber that provided no answer, gave you nothing. You didn't know. You just… didn't know.

The quiet of the night was disturbed.

Tonowari burst into the hut, eyes rapidly darting around the space. He was panting, alarmed, until his gaze found you.

All at once, he deflated, his shoulders slumping.

On heavy feet, he closed the distance between you, and dropped to his knees. A hand settled on your shoulder, and for a long while, you both peered at Pril as she slept, taking in her presence, her little breaths, her curled fists. She was nuzzled into the cushion of your breast, allayed by the warmth of your skin.

Earlier, you removed your top, allowing the infant full contact. You figured the woven garment would be uncomfortable for her.

You couldn't find it in yourself to be embarrassed or ashamed, not caring that Tonowari could see your naked chest. You were sure it would haunt you for the rest of your life later, but at the moment, it didn't matter.

Eventually, he adjusted himself to sit cross-legged beside you, his hand absentmindedly drifting to the back of your neck.

"I owe you a debt I can never repay," he said, his voice drawn into a low rumble, wary of waking Pril.

You dragged your stare away from Pril, searching his expression. "What?"

"My mate, my other half," he hushed. "She lives because of you. Our daughter lives because of you. In this life and the next, I will never be able to repay this debt. No words exist to tell you how grateful I am to you."

You frowned. "No," you whispered. "No, it's— you don't owe me anything. I… I only did what anyone would."

He shook his head, insistent. "The People's tsahìk survived. A great loss has been prevented. A life did not have to be exchanged for another."

You blinked at him slowly, dry and heavy.

It did not feel as though you did something, anything, good. You felt like you were a failure. A mess. An ill omen on the People of this clan. Maybe, if not for you, Ronal would never have been injured. She never would have been so close to slipping into death's embrace.

You'd argue about the apparent debt later. Insist he owed you nothing. If anything, you owed him and his wife everything.

His rough, strong fingers massaged into the aching, tight muscle of your trapezius, and you held back a groan, the noise trapped in the bottom of your throat. He applied a heavenly pressure, one that you leaned back into, lashes fluttering shut.

Kindly, he continued, the painfulness beginning to ebb away under his skillful touch.

At some point, Tsireya returned, holding a small gourd with a narrow tip.

She passed it to Tonowari, who waited for you to reposition Pril before giving it to you.

Using your thumb, you rubbed her chubby cheek back and forth, coaxing her awake. She whined, twisting and writhing. Her mouth opened, and she took a few quick breaths, as if preparing to cry.

You placed the nozzle against her bottom lip, letting her find it herself. Once she closed her mouth around it, you tilted it up, allowing the milk to flow. She suckled, calming down as she tasted the milk and figured out what it was.

Nestled in the crook of your elbow, she drank her fill contentedly, so innocent and blissfully unaware of the evils wrought unto this world, the world she had been born into mere hours ago.

"I can't take care of her, not like this," you said softly.

Tonowari's brow furrowed. The fingers of his free hand lightly rubbed at one of Pril's feet. "What do you mean?"

You drew in a long breath. "This body. I can't… I can't take care of her if I'm trapped between two places," you explained, voice hoarse from your earlier crying.

"What do you suggest?" He asked.

The request sat heavy on your mind, for more reasons than one.

To start with, you didn't even know if he'd be willing to help you. You didn't know what went into the process to begin with, having only heard of it down the pipeline of rumors and through the proof of images.

Second, it was… hard to fathom, to reckon with.

The idea seemed so distant and far-fetched. It was like trying to visualize death, to imagine what it'd be like. Your brain just couldn't grasp onto the idea properly, viewing it as more of a dream than a possible reality.

And you'd be losing yourself. Forever.

Not you, but… you. The you that you had known all your life, the one you saw in the mirror, the one sleeping in a gel bed in some neglected shack on some one-off island. You'd be losing the part of you that was entirely you, not just 50% of your DNA spliced with 50% Na'vi DNA.

But in the short time that you had Pril, the hours you kept her to your heart, you knew you had to. You couldn't take care of two bodies while tending to a baby. You couldn't split yourself apart, live a life in that body and another in this. It wasn't possible in any existence.

You had to do it.

"Jake Sully," you spoke his name as if it was dangerous. It was dangerous. "I want to do what he did."

Tonowari's hand stilled on your neck. "The transfer ceremony?"

"Yes," you confirmed.

His jaw fluttered, teeth grinding together. "Are you certain? This is not a decision to be made lightly. It cannot be undone."

A single tear escaped, tracking down your cheek.

"I have to," you said with finality. "I have to. For her."

He lightly squeezed the back of your neck, persuading you to look at him.

"I will help," he promised. "It will be done."

You sagged in relief, your eyelids closing. You were terrified, of course you were, how could you not be?

But you were more scared of what would happen if you didn't. What would become of Pril.

She needed you.

Maybe you needed her, too.

"Thank you," you whispered.

Tonowari gave no reply, but he stayed with you, keeping watch. He stayed until Pril finished eating, and instructed you on how to burp her properly, praising you as you patted her back. The infant grumbled the whole time, and you two shared a quiet laugh at her displeasure.

Afterwards, he took the gourd, placing it aside. He coerced a stray piece of your hair to move away, unsticking it from the sweat and tears of your skin.

"Rest," he instructed. "In this body, and your human one. Tsireya will stay with you tonight to watch over Pril."

As he said it, the curtain over the door was moved aside, allowing Tsireya to enter. She was carrying a basket full of various materials, and though she looked tired herself, she certainly had much more energy than you.

"You won't take her?" You asked her.

She shook her head. "No. I will stay here. I will not go anywhere, and she will not either."

"And you won't allow anyone else to take her."

"I will not."

Somewhat eased, you mumbled your agreement, and let Tonowari help you lay down. For now, you were allowed to keep holding Pril, who had fallen back asleep.

"Tomorrow," he said. "At dawn. We will perform the ceremony."

It didn't give you much time to sleep, neither in this body nor the other, but it'd be enough. No matter what time, you'd be there.

"Thank you," you repeated your gratitude again.

He rubbed your bicep in farewell, then rose, saying something to Tsireya that was too soft for you to hear. You were quickly fading, anyway, the muted noises around you drifting away until blackness took hold.

And you were awake in your human body once more.

Dawn came slowly, too slowly, yet all far too soon.

You woke bleary-eyed and bone tired, sleep having evaded you all night. What was to come haunted you, playing in your mind on a broken track, looping at the part where you'd be separated from yourself to become a seed planted in a being only half yours.

You were going to die.

There was no two-ways about it. The truth of the matter was that at least one part of you was going to meet its end. If the transfer didn't work, then… then you'd truly die. And you doubted Eywa would welcome you into her arms to live amongst her children within her.

You avoided thinking about that outcome as much as you could, though it scratched at the inner walls of your skull like nails on chalkboard.

It wasn't a choice.

Pril needed you.

You promised.

You vowed to a dying Ronal that you would guard Pril with your life. Maybe becoming a pseudo-parent wasn't part of the request, but you meant what you said. You'd use your life, every fiber of your being, to be her sentinel, her shield against all in the world that would dare try harm her.

You'd worry about what came next when you reached it, bridges yet to be reached, uncrossed.

For now, all you could do was survive.

There were only two instances of an attempted transference of consciousness from human body to avatar. An abysmal pool to gather data from, but the coin flip was clear.

Heads or tails.

50% chance you die. 50% chance you live.

More or less.

For Grace Augustine, may she rest in peace, it was evident why she didn't make it. Even you knew the story of the great doctor and her attempt, how she was too injured, too close to the gateway between worlds, to endure the transfer.

You weren't harmed, your body was in one piece.

It didn't take away the fear. The terror.

You were afraid. Lying about it helped nothing, nobody, least of all yourself.

For Pril, you reminded yourself. For her.

For her mother, who could not cuddle and dote upon her daughter herself. For her father, whose threads were pulled near snapping by his duties as leader to a clan suffering from war.

And maybe, just maybe, for yourself, too. For a chance to live a life unburdened by the weight of what you were before you came to Pandora. What awaited you at the end of your rotation. For a chance to breathe this sweet air always, and never have to exist under the oppressive thumb of an organization hellbent on destroying everything they touched.

Resource Development Administration.

They certainly lived up to their name of developing resources. They just never told you that they happily scorched the lands of other planets, other worlds, to harvest what they wanted.

Unobtanium from the forest, amrita from the tulkun.

Life from the very Mother herself.

Running a hand down your face, you groaned, sitting up in the shoddy cot you slept on. Your back and neck ached, and there were deeply grooved impression lines all over your arms and legs.

You envied your avatar body, All it had to do to sleep was have you disconnect.

Though, you supposed that would change today.

As you got out of bed, ruffled and disgruntled, a tentative hand rapped on the window of the shack. You spotted a Na'vi outside, one of the two that guarded the shack and, subsequently, your human self.

Not bothering to eat, you donned an exo-pack and let the shack pressurize before opening the door and stepping outside.

It felt weird, being out here in this form. The air felt different on your skin, and breathing was harder through the mask, the filtered oxygen tasting vaguely dusty and of metal.

"Ayoe zene salew," He said. You barely picked out a couple words, but you knew what he meant.

A little ways off the beach, your other guard awaited, sat on an ilu. Another one was beside him, his hand lightly stroking its head.

The first man gently lifted you onto the back of the second ilu, then climbed on himself behind you, making tsaheylu.

"Niä sìn," he instructed.

You grabbed onto the two thick queues of the ilu, holding on as tightly as you could.

At once, they both dived beneath the waves. Instinctively, you held your breath until you no longer could, and exhaling sharply to suck in fresh air. You initially expected the mask to flood, drown you in your own contained sea, but it held steady, filtering air from the water to provide to you.

The ocean drifted past you. Fish and otterfins, zukzuk, swam in and out of large, bell-shaped flora, or twirled between stretching reeds. Sea anemonoids swayed to and fro, the tides merciful, too delicate to rend them from their perches on colorful corals.

A Nom's Delight proudly displayed its tendrils, teal blue and adept at catching plankton.

In the middle of it all was you, both so out of place and right where you belonged.

In another life, somewhere far from here, another universe, another timeline — you liked to think that in that life, you were born in the sea, and lived among its residents. A native to the boundless cerulean, at home where you were happy and free.

But that girl lived another life, and you lived this one.

This one where you were transported to the Metkayina's most sacred, valued place.

Their Spirit Tree was beautiful.

It swayed gently in the current, its fronds extending far and wide, glowing a mellow and serene violet. Pink veins ran along the middles of the fronds, spreading out in nourishing tendrils.

Tonowari was already there, prepared. Some healers were also nearby, as well as Ao'nung. You wondered where Tsireya was, then realized she was likely with Pril. You hoped, anyway. That was all you had, nowadays.

Hope.

Tonowari had brought your avatar with him. She was curled into a fetal position, eyes closed, her queue connected to one of the fronds. Periodically, she twitched, but otherwise did not move. You would have freaked out if she did, really. If she awoke without you in her, developing a soul of her own.

Leaving you behind, stuck in this body.

You slipped off the ilu when prompted to, and Tonowari took your hand, pulling you towards him and the Spirit Tree.

He made a strange gesture, expanding his chest without breathing in. It took you a second to figure out he wanted you to take a deep breath, so you followed suit, doing it as many times as he wanted you to.

Then, he nudged you towards the Tree, pressing your back against a frond close to your avatar. He pulled others closer, too, wrapping your body in them to keep you against the Tree.

You were sure it felt strange, wrong, for him to be doing this without his tsahìk and mate to guide the ceremony. You were immensely grateful he agreed to do it in spite of this. He must have known enough about it to know how to do it himself, with few others present.

Hope was all you had, and you could only hope it would be enough.

There was only one signed word Tonowari had taught you, in preparation for this. There wasn't enough time to teach you more, and you really only needed one.

Ready? He signed.

"Yes," you said back, and clumsily signed the word back.

He smiled at you, then drifted toward the Tree. He brought his own kuru from over his shoulder, allowing it to bond with it. The others nearby followed suit, lending their strength, their desire, to the living wonder.

You took one more deep breath, closed your eyes, and let the ocean consume you whole.

At first, nothing happened. There was darkness, and the faint pulse of the Tree at your back, but little else.

Just as you began to worry, you felt a zap go through your entire body, muscles stiffening before going completely limp.

You felt as though you had been pulled from your body, your soul ripped clean free and brought into a vast expanse where nothing and everything existed simultaneously, harmoniously. You floated here, a universe at your fingertips, yet so far away, untouchable.

You gasped, whipping around, searching for… something.

In the far distance, you saw it:

A light.

Tender, velvet violet, it thumped in time to a heartbeat, one you hadn't noticed until it was all you could hear, not your own breath, not your own heart.

A moth to flame, you floated to it, captivated and afraid and so deeply, immensely in love. Up close, it veiled everything else, vibrant and alive in a way you had no words to describe.

It was Pandora's nucleus, its essence concentrated into very foundational components.

Its pulse, what kept the land and sea and sky thriving and wondrous. It gave life to everything, and let the energy it gifted come back to it when the time came for the life bearing it above to return.

Was this Eywa? The goddess, the deity, the Na'vi spoke of? Their All Mother?

It called to you, whisper-soft words you couldn't discern kissing your ears, brushing over your hair, leaching into your bloodstream. Unable to resist, you stretched toward it. Your arm changed with each nictation of your eyes, alternating between normal and turquoise.

Come, the choir sang, not so much aloud as implanted in your mind, a coaxing siren you heard and didn't hear. Come to me.

As soon as your fingertips brushed the warm, lavender light, it engulfed you.

It entered your chest, your limbs, your head. It bled into your eyes and ears, and tore your being apart at the molecular level. You were shredded, atoms shorn to be rebuilt anew. The you that existed now ruptured, marrow separated from bone, breath separated from lung.

Sundered.

You shattered, soul and spirit and soma slivered into ribbons.

Death bit into your flesh to rip it to pieces. It entered your mouth, lodged itself in your throat. Your chest spasmed, unable to inhaled the oxygen you needed. Your heart pounded faster and faster, the muscle straining to circulate the cruor inside you. Its beats reduced into feverish pulses.

Then nothing.

Your corpse came to with something covering your mouth and pinching your nose shut.

Eyes snapping open, you glanced around in a panic, trying to find the source of your suffocation.

Tonowari floated before you, expression creased with concern.

He signed something, and you automatically reacted, calming down bit by bit. Once satisfied that you wouldn't thrash and drown yourself in your terror, he nodded to someone. They swam over and retracted an object at your back. Then, they placed a gelatinous form on your back, connecting it to you.

The burning in your chest abated, not quite gone, but muffled.

Pins and needles lingered in your skeleton, as if you were coming out of a long sleep. Your own anatomy was useless to you in the moment, so Tonowari pulled you with him to a tsurak. He sat on the saddle and put you at the front, arm looped around your waist to keep you in place.

The tsurak bolted upward, and you drank in a forceful, almost violent heave of air the second you broke through the ocean's shell.

Gasping, you dug your nails into the saddle, shuddering and lurching.

"Mawey," Tonowari yipped. "Mawey, tanhì oeyä. You are alright. Calm, be calm."

Easier said than done. It took you long minutes to settle down, and you slumped into his chest, wrung dry. Figuratively speaking.

"You did it," he told you. "You passed through Eywa's Eye and came back to us."

Spent, you asked in a weak cadence, "It's done?"

"Yes," he said, hugging you tighter. "It is done."

Relief and grief surged through you, a loss, a gain. Insurmountable, they left you wheezing and sapped of all energy.

You did it. You actually did it.

Had you the wherewithal, you would have cheered, celebrated. You would have supped the air and tasted its sweetness, appreciated the wind on your cheeks, the lapping waves at your ankles.

But you were beaten and worn, finding no more energy to do much but lean back into Tonowari.

"Rest. You survived," Tonowari congratulated you quietly.

So you let yourself relax completely, trusting he'd get you back safely.

The mothers of the clan, whose children weren't much older than Pril, had taken you in.

They taught you their Songs, their language. They laughed when you butchered words, but never at you, encouraging you to try again.

The more experienced mothers taught you how to properly hold Pril, supporting her head and neck. They taught you how to sit her somewhat upright during feedings, saying it was more comfortable.

You asked how, and Lo'koä demonstrated by laying down and drinking water as fast as she could. She started coughing, having to roll onto her side to hack out the excess liquid while the other women laughed hysterically.

"Kame? Ayoe heyn pehrr ayoe naer," See? We sit when we drink. "Nìftxan po sweylu, nìhawng." So she should, too.

Ah. Got it.

They shared their stories, clarifying the parts you didn't understand. You, in turn, shared yours in broken Na'vi. Like Makani had been with you, they were patient, correcting your mistakes with light nudges and accepting smiles.

You asked Ze'te, the main healer looking over Ronal, to call you whenever you could see her. Faithfully, about every three or so days, she'd steal you from the mothers' circle to visit Ronal.

The clan's tsahìk had been unconscious since you brought her, crying for aid.

But you sat next to her, Pril always with you, and spoke to them.

"This is your mom," you told Pril every time. "Sa'nok. She's sleeping right now, but she'll meet you soon. I'm sure she can't wait."

Pril made noises. Not really babbles, she was too young for those, but she grunted and grumbled, entirely uninterested unless it involved eating or sleeping. Oftentimes, your visits coincided with her feeding times, and you had a sneaking suspicion that she began associating the healers' marui with food. She'd wriggle and whine until you got her milk to guzzle down.

Trrva, a mother who, too, adopted a infant, suggested you try dribbling the milk down your breast and have Pril sort of pseudo nurse on you. It was weird, and tricky to figure out. She had to help you the first week you took her up on the offer, but you eventually got the hang of it.

She said it was important for a babe to feed from a nipple, rather than the stiff tip of a gourd. The hard wood could cause damage to her gums, and complicate the growth of her teeth in a few months.

While you weren't lactating, you made it work, too worried about causing her harm down the line to care about the odd arrangement. Whatever it took to give her a good life and the best chance at thriving

Sometimes Tonowari was there during your visits. His stays were shorter than yours, lasting the brief few minutes he could find in his busy schedule to see his wife. He'd sit next to you, hand on your shoulder, or the back of your neck. Mostly, he didn't talk, just sat and watched his wife breathe steadily. If he had time, he'd pray, but those days were rare.

You never missed a visit. You practiced your Na'vi where you had nobody to correct you, wanting to figure it out yourself, see if you could remember. The things you could remember you set aside, either to try again later, or to ask someone for help.

"Oeyä prrnen," you said, kissing her forehead anytime she fussed. "You have to be nice to your sa'nu when she wakes up. She won't be very strong, so she needs you to be strong for her, sran?"

When she slept, you turned your attention to Ronal, rubbing your thumb on the back of her knuckles.

"Wake up soon, okay? Your baby misses you. She needs you."

You always left after about an hour, when Ze'te came to take you back to the circle. It never got easier.

You hoped, prayed, that Ronal would wake up. Soon, later, whenever, so long as she did.

For the first time in weeks, Tonowari could let out a breath of air.

Recovering from a war was difficult, victorious or not. Many of his people had been lost, many more injured, nevermind the hundreds of others from fellow clans. Once more, Toruk Makto had led them to triumph against the sky people, the third Great Sorrow coming to an end, but that was only half the battle.

The other half came in the form of managing those that had survived; leading efforts to rebuild what had been destroyed, organizing hunting parties out of the warriors that were minimally injured and able-bodied. The healers needed resources to care for the wounded, homes needed restoring, debris needed clearing. Councils had to be held between the clans to discuss who needed help most and how aid could be distributed, the tulkun had their own troubles.

It was a lot. Took a lot out of him.

But, if only for a moment, there was peace.

Most of the clan had long since gone to bed, lanterns turned low and the curtain-doors of what maruis remained closed. A few stragglers remained; healers and guards on rotation that protected the perimeter, keeping an eye out for trouble. The war might have been won, but there was no telling what danger remained, if any. Tonowari had to be vigilant for the sake of his people.

Sighing, he ran a hand down his face, feeling the exhaustion weighing heavy on his bones as he stepped out of the commander's hut. All matters that could be settled for the day had been, emergencies and urgent matters tended to. The next council wasn't until midday, and he knew he needed to take the chance to rest a few scant hours before the work began again.

However, he felt he had one duty left to attend to. He'd be unable to rest otherwise.

His steps were silent on the woven pathways of his village as he passed by homes, periodically peeking in one to check on the recovering beings inside. All were sound asleep, lights extinguished as they lied in hammocks and on sleeping mats, some covered in blankets and others bared.

All but one.

The marui you'd been given in gratitude for saving his wife and child, and for siding with his people, was small, meant to house only one or two people. The shade on one window was lowered halfway, but the doorway was still bound open, letting the dim glow of a lantern bleed through.

As he stopped outside the door, a hand resting on the arch, he found you on the floor, rocking Pril back and forth. The infant fretted, squirming, her face pinched in displeasure.

You cooed at her, soft and low, and oh-so careful in how you carried her. You kept her close to your bosom, and Tonowari was subtly chuffed to see you wearing the clothes of his people, no longer dressed in demon's fabric. Not since that night you came to them, hysterical and risking your life to ferry a message. The skin-on-skin was vital for Pril, the warmth of your body acting as an innate comfort to her.

It was hard for him to believe you never had children of your own. It took a few short minutes of whispering and crooning to Pril for her irritation to settle down, something that took him and Ronal months to learn when their first came into this world. In his eyes, you were a natural at it, made for motherhood.

"That's it," you murmured when Pril's weeping quieted into even breathing, running your extra finger down the length of the baby's nose in a featherlight touch. "You're okay. I've got you."

Having yet to notice him, Tonowari cleared his throat, causing you to startle minutely at his presence.

"Oh— Tono— ah, sorry. Olo'eyktan," you stuttered awkwardly. "Is there something you need?"

"Just Tonowari is fine," he said, his accent softened by the night. "May I enter?"

You nodded immediately, as if the thought of turning him away hadn't crossed your mind. He walked into the small space, the distance between you closed in a few short strides of his. Languid, he crouched down in front of you, his eyes going to his daughter.

Pril was fast asleep, her cheek pressed to the top of your chest, ear occasionally twitching. Her stubby tail was relaxed, draped over the crook of your arm in a way that reminded him of when Ao'nung was her age. The boy never grew out of the habit of letting his tail hang over the edge of his hammock, undeterred by the amount of times it'd been accidentally stepped on in the middle of the night.

It struck Tonowari, then and there, that Pril being in your arms looked right.

She was hardly a crumb, astronomically tiny compared to her siblings, yet she fit in the cradle of your embrace so perfectly. Always meant to be.

Perhaps this is why Eywa led you to them.

At first, he only saw you as a dreamwalker, another one of them. Allowing you to side with them wasn't trust, it was to keep his enemy close, ensuring he could be there if you tried to sabotage them.

When he heard that you had stumbled into the camp with Pril on your chest and an unconscious Ronal on your back, he initially assumed you had killed them, and brought them back to taunt him. A stab directly through the heart of the Metkayina, taking them down by kicking out the pillar that held them up.

But you were crying. Begging for help, telling them Ronal was alive, dying, save her.

In the chaos of it all, he didn't have time to process what was happening. He had to focus on the battle, on finishing this war that the sky people started.

Tsireya told him that you bared your teeth at her when she tried to take Pril, then immediately softened in regret.

"No, I can't, I'm sorry," she relayed your words. "I promised I'd protect her."

In that moment, Tonowari knew he could trust you in his home, with his people.

With Pril.

A difficult decision in the heat of the moment, but relief overcame him to know it had been the correct one.

He didn't know what you said to Ronal before you brought her and Pril back, what you promised, but keeping Pril safe was evidently your main concern. You took the task to heart, never once letting the infant stray from your sight. It was for her sake that you transferred bodies, made the permanent choice to discard the life you lived and loved for one entirely stranger to you. You sacrificed everything you had for his daughter.

For that alone, he would forever be in your debt, and would always respect you as one of his own.

"Do you want to hold her?" You asked, shifting her.

He shook his head. "Another time," his voice rumbled. "You worked hard to soothe her. I will not ruin your efforts."

You smiled at him, tired but grateful.

His eyes moved from Pril to you, then to your hair, and he frowned.

It was a mess of tangles and clumps, neglected past quick, rudimentary washes between Pril's naps. It looked clean, but horridly dry and matted.

Right. You were alone, having nobody to take care of you while you had your hands busy with Pril. Your own needs had been taken off the flame and set elsewhere, forgotten entirely in the face of such troublesome times.

Taking a strand, he ran it between his fingers, his frown deepening at the tiny knots he felt.

"I will fix this," he stated bluntly.

You froze in place, mouth opening and closing in resemblance to a fish. Memories flickered behind your lids, making you grimace.

"Oh!" You breathed out, mindful of the sleeping bundle you carried. "No, no, that's okay! I know you're busy, I'll just deal with it in the morning, so—"

He leveled you with a flat look and repeated, "I will fix this."

You deflated, shoulders and ears sinking. Your tail, wrapped around the side of your body, twitched nervously. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I am sure."

"Okay," you conceded. "Thank you."

Giving you a firm nod, he let go of your hair and rose to his feet. "I will return shortly."

Your gaze followed him as he left, and you pouted, glancing down at Pril.

"What have I gotten myself into? Mm?" You muttered. She, of course, gave no response beyond a baby-sized snort in her sleep. A wispy laugh bubbled up, and you tapped the tip of her nose. "You're no help."

True to his word, Tonowari came back minutes later, bearing a small basket and some sort of folded cloth, which he set down on the floor as he knelt behind you. Curious, you peeked into the basket and saw a plethora of oils stored in small jars, combs, beads, shells, and feather-like accessories.

Skilled, weapon-worn fingers retrieved a bone comb from the basket, and you sat up straighter as he went right to work, not keen on wasting time. He grouped up your hair at your back and drew the comb through the bottom inches, making his way up. He was surprisingly gentle, pausing at each knot to methodically unwind it. He was swift, but careful, making sure he caused you no pain.

Practiced. He'd done this before, plenty of times, the movements as natural to him as swimming.

It was unexpected.

Growing up on earth, you learned that, if there was a lot of hair to be maintained, it was a woman's job. Your mother did your hair until you learned to do it yourself, the salons you visited were all run by women. The men on the street with extravagant styles and brightly-colored tresses hired women to do it.

Your own father had scoffed in your mother's face when she offered to teach him how to braid your hair, or put it in a proper tie. The one time he tried to brush your hair, he yanked the brush from scalp to end, tearing a section clean out. He later used it as proof of him being incapable of a job meant for mother, not father.

The dismissal was something that had persisted from old times, your mother told you. The people of the past, some 100-odd years ago, viewed women the same way they did in modern times; mules, workhorses, personal maids and caterers to the 'mundane' jobs that men did not want to do. It was something you grew up expecting from men, only allowing room for pleasant surprise when the odd one out offered to help you in whatever boring task you were doing.

Part of you unfairly expected Tonowari to be the same.

You never considered that the Na'vi did things differently, saw things differently. You forgot that tasks were to be divided among the clan by the capable, not by gender. It only made sense that Tonowari was raised along those ideals; everyone shares the load.

Your tightened muscles loosened one by one, the fear of him being careless and cruel dissipating alongside each thorough glide of the comb through your hair.

About halfway up, your exhaustion was getting to you, eyes heavy and dry. Your head tipped forward, and Tonowari nimbly put his fingers under your chin, angling it back up.

"Stay awake a while longer," he murmured. "I will try to be swift."

"Mhmm," you responded, lashes fluttering over your cheeks. Behind you, he chuckled, a noise you more felt in your spine than heard.

He smoothed out the remaining tangles disrupting your hair, able to pick up the pace afterwards. Skilled fingers drew the comb along your scalp, parting strands into even sections. The ones he didn't need at the moment got swept aside and loosely tied with a strip of reed thread. The rasp of callused digits splitting the first section into smaller pieces sent a pleasant shiver down your back, goosebumps rising in its wake.

In her sleep, Pril huffed, snuggling into the warmth of your breast, inherently trusting that you'd guard her against anyone and anything.

"She feels secure with you," Tonowari said, pausing to observe. "I fear if I took her, she'd panic, become afraid."

You blinked your eyes open, readjusting your hold on her. "S'not true," you mumbled. "You're her father."

He hummed in acknowledgment. "I have not been present," he stated rather calmly, though notes of regret came through. "She would not recognize me. All she knows is you."

You didn't have a rebuttal, not this late into the night, when you were drawn to your thinnest thread and hanging from it with all your remaining strength. As much as you wished to refute him, reassure him that his own flesh and blood would know him, you didn't have it in you.

You never had children of your own. You had no frame of reference, no way to tell what was and wasn't normal.

A traitorous little part of you whispered that he was right. You were all Pril had, her only reliable source of trust and comfort, the only one who could tend to her as she needed. If not for you, there would be nobody; her father was too busy managing the clan, her siblings too young, and her mother…

You slumped a bit, weary and long-suffering.

You had so much to think about, but the little one took up all your time. From dawn to dusk to dawn again, she was just as much your entire world as you were hers. Had you wrapped around her smallest finger and didn't even know it.

Her slow, steady breaths and Tonowari's careful weaving lulled you into a dozing state, still present to stay upright and continue rocking Pril. A mild, barely-there cadence, back and forth, back and forth, keeping her content as she slept, unaware of the greater world. Unaware of anything but you, the warmth of your bosom, the pulsing of your heart.

Coral jars clinked softly together as Tonowari moved some things around in the basket, your curiosity dulled by fatigue. Your scalp felt a little tight, but free in a way, too. Like you'd been wearing a thick coat in a desert and finally took it off. Air could circulate now and didn't stifle you, or give you migraines from heat getting trapped in the nest of hair you couldn't be bothered to fix.

You hear him spread a fragrant oil over his palms, then he gathered the rest of your hair at the back of your head, running his hands over it a few times to partially distribute the oil. Then, he separated it into sections once more, albeit much fewer this time.

He coated your hair in the oil as he pulled the tails together into a tight braid, periodically reapplying a thin layer as he went. He worked your kuru into the braid, not as part of the tails, but rather what they wrapped around.

Braid inception. Braids within braids.

You almost laughed; it came out more like a huff through your nostrils.

Tonowari must have taken it to mean you were growing impatient with him.

"I will finish in a moment, I promise," he said placated.

"'S okay," you mumbled back, hardly processing what he said.

He maintained his fixed pace all the way until he was done, using a leather strap to secure the end of your braid to your kuru.

"There. Finished," he said. "This will keep it out of the way, and prevent tangles. Come to me when it needs to be redone."

You inhaled and fluttered your lashes, trying to blink the sleep away. "'Kay, I will. Thank you, Tonowari."

He hummed in reply and busied himself with gathering what he used to return to the basket. You made to stand, but swayed lightly as you got to your knees. Sudden panic at the thought of accidentally dropping Pril or — Eywa forbid — falling on her seized you, and you gasped.

Instantly, hands were on you, big palms spread across your waist and hips to anchor you.

They were warm, and rough, but oh-so painfully benevolent, hardly applying any pressure, as if afraid you'd simply shatter.

"Easy," Tonowari rumbled. "Easy. I will help."

He rose to his feet, his hands shifting up your form as he went. He stepped around to your front and, with his fingers closed around your biceps, he aided you up. Even after finding your balance, he didn't let go, not fully.

Hovering an arm around your lower back, ready to catch you if anything happened, he patiently guided you toward your bed mat. Wherever his touch was needed, he let it settle there naturally; at your hip as you turned, at your elbow as you lowered yourself, and at the back of your neck as you sat, your tail slapping the woven floor in tired finality.

He watched observantly as you laid Pril on her back in the spot you designated as hers on your sleeping mat, doing your utmost to avoid rousing her. Only after you had her situated did you lay down yourself, an arm pillowing your head, a hand curled around Pril, tucking her close to your chest.

For a few seconds, Tonowari vanished from your line of sight, and you thought he already left. But he returned, unfurling a woven blanket. You realized, delayed, that it was the cloth he'd brought in with him earlier.

He draped it over you, the fabric whisper soft compared to the usual rough texture of woven Na'vi materials.

Diligently, he tucked it around both you and Pril, ensuring the edges wouldn't come loose. You blinked up at him, third eyelids not fully receding, your body too spent to control the muscles.

He crouched down at your head, his own tilting minutely to one side.

"Sleep," he whispered, brushing a thumb over your cheek. "You are safe here."

For the first time in weeks, it felt like everything would truly be alright. Like it was okay for you to get some rest, too, not weighed down by guilt or the never-ending swarm of thoughts that refused to abate.

You closed your eyes, and fell asleep before he could leave.

Ronal woke slow, groggy.

The world filtered into her consciousness in bite-sized pieces; the muffled sound of chatter broken by the far off woosh of waves. Dim light bleeding into her retinas through her sticky eyelashes.

She cycled like that, between sleep and conscious, dead and alive.

It was not easy.

There were moments where she was lucid enough to understand the healers as they asked her to blink, or drink herbal teas.

In different moments, she was half there and half not. Focused on a single, faraway spot, a star in a different galaxy.

Time was meaningless here to her.

It passed in increments between awareness and darkness. It moved regardless of her input, but controlled the speed at which she healed. Though she did not know exactly what happened to her yet, her memories foggy, she knew that she had been gravely wounded. She believed she'd die, believed she was dead.

Yet here she was, in pain, but very much alive.

Being a healer herself did not make recovery any easier. The very things she told her patients, she wanted to go against. When Ze'te helped her sit upright, she wanted to stand and get back to her tasks as tsahìk. She wanted to check on the clan, tend to the injured, stand beside Tonowari as they rebuilt what was broken and mourned what was lost.

Ze'te kept a close eye on her, though, thwarting her attempts at pushing herself too hard, too soon. Damn the woman. She was right, yes, but that did not lessen Ronal's inner wrath.

"I will pluck your eyes from your head," Ronal once threatened.

"Yes, tsahìk, as you wish. But only after you have fully healed. The other girls fear you."

"They do not fear me."

"You made Tsu'll cry when she offered you a drink."

"…After this is done, I will turn your liver into soup to feed the ilu with."

Ze'te had the nerve to grin cheekily at her. "When you have the strength to defeat me, you may."

"Bratty girl."

"Taught by the very best."

There was little Ronal could do but wile away the days, going a bit further each new dawn to test her limits.

Standing was… a challenge. A greater one than she anticipated.

Her legs shook beneath her like that of pa'li, or of toddlers using their parents' tails to test their balance. It was certainly comparable, given she needed Ze'te to support her anytime she needed to move to relieve herself. A lesson in humility.

Though she'd done the same for others many times, and always beseeched them to not feel ashamed, those same emotions plagued her.

It all had to come crashing down one day, though.

"Where is my daughter?"

Ze'te paused, halfway through grinding new herbs to spread onto Ronal's healing injury.

She hesitated, then answered. "She is with the dreamwalker."

Ronal froze.

"…What?"

Ze'te did not turn to face her. "Yes. The dreamwalker has been caring for her, day and night," Ze'te explained. "The mothers have been teaching her, too. She is doing well. Your daughter is healthy, and—"

Before Ze'te could finish, Ronal shoved herself to her feet, her expression twisted into one of pure, unadulterated wrath and disgust.

She stormed out of the building, disregarding Ze'te's cries of shock and pleas for her to return. She chased after her tsahìk, but Ronal only shook her off every time Ze'te tried to grab her, her grasp too lose in fear of hurting the woman.

Ronal stomped across the pathways between maruis, pouring all her focus into ignoring the agony radiating through her body. She was determined to find you, rip her baby from your arms, and curse you out until you preferably crumbled to dust at her feet.

At least, that was the plan.

A soft sound caused her to stagger, a hand shooting out to clutch at a nearby marui as she stopped. Her ears twitched forward, trying to pinpoint the sound. It was low and soothing, and her feet carried her towards it unconsciously, careful and quiet. As she rounded a bend, she realized the noise was coming from your marui.

From you.

Cautiously, she peeked in through an open window, back pressed to the side of the structure to stay hidden. You were none the wiser, and she could see why.

You cradled Pril so delicately that it made her stomach swoop. She was so small in your arms, and you seemed painfully aware of that at all times as you leaned back against the pillar in the center of the marui and held her with both your arms. Your chin was tipped downwards, your mouth forming around the lyrics of one of the tribe's songs, singing softly to the infant you embraced like you'd be torn apart without her.

Your Na'vi was rough, the words you weren't familiar with mumbled and garbled, but your voice was gentle and sweet. You were trying for her, for Pril.

From where Ronal stood, she couldn't see your face, your head turned away from her, but she could see Pril's.

Her baby was looking up at you with pure wonder in her eyes, her tiny mouth twitching into a gummy smile as she kicked her little feet. You laughed near-silently and cupped Pril's tiny face, brushing a thumb over her chubby cheek as her tail smacked your ribs. It'd be years before Pril gained proper control of the appendage, but it seemed you didn't mind in the slightest. If anything, it made you coo at her in adoration, rather than annoyance.

Humans were nothing but scum. They didn't care for their own home and Mother, they let her die, killed her. Why would they care for their young, let alone the young of others? If they had no respect for those that came before, they could have no respect for those who came after, no love, no desire to guide them to be strong and wise.

Of that, Ronal was certain.

But you…

Ronal could not make any more exceptions, not after Jakesully and his family arrived and brought their war with them. She could not find space in her heart to allow another vrrtep onto her land, her waters, into her home. Everything was sacred, every life and thought and breath. Demons like you trampled all over anything sacred; you were a pestilence, a disease she needed to excise. There was nobody, nobody—

Nobody like you, who sacrificed your time, all you knew, everything you had and wanted, for the sake of another's precious life.

You'd given away everything to uphold your promise, your vow, to Ronal, and did more than that. It was more than protecting Pril, bringing her to the village where she could be guarded and tended to by the People. It was you sitting there, bearing the weight of a newborn on your own. Hushing her as she put up a fuss after you stopped singing, and pressing your lips to her forehead in the most featherlight of kisses. Stroking two fingers over her belly to ease her discomfort, resting your thumb over the drum of her minuscule heart.

It was you.

Making no noise, Ronal stepped away from your marui. She walked away, the sound of your voice ringing in her ears like a bell. Ze'te welcomed her back into the healing hut with immense relief, but she paid her no mind as she helped her sit down.

"Be kind to the dreamwalker," Ze'te hissed. "You must be grateful. She saved you."

Ze'te checked over her wound to make sure she hadn't aggravated it in her stormy fury. She chided Ronal, but Ronal had already allowed her eyes to drift shut. She needed time. She needed to think.

And she thought best when meditating and praying to Eywa.

Ma'Eywa, 'upe si oe si?

All she had known was turned on its head in less than ten minutes.

She woke up after having been certain she would die. She learned she had been asleep for weeks, was told you, of all people, had saved her, and when she asked about her baby, it was one of her own protégés that informed Ronal that you were taking care of the infant. Had been for weeks.

She felt an anger like no other. Anger at herself for failing her baby, her family. Anger at Tonowari and the clan for allowing you to so much as touch Pril. Anger at you for daring to.

Yet, you held Pril like she was your own.

Ronal couldn't deny that you kept your promise, both of them. You protected Pril with your life, and somehow, some way, you brought Ronal back to the village. You saved her life. And in the time that Ronal was unconscious, fighting to survive and heal, you had taken Pril as your responsibility.

Ze'te told her as much. She told her that you visited Ronal every few few days, by your request, and told the infant stories about her mother as you did so. You cleaned her, burped her, and rocked her to sleep. You fed her yourself, using the technique Trrva used for her adopted child. You walked around the village with her when she got antsy and restless, and the few chances you got to sleep, you kept her tucked against you, embraced in your arms.

Safe.

Though— something didn't add up.

You were uniltìranyu; a dreamwalker. Whenever your avatar body slept, you were ejected back into your human body. Had you brought your human body to the village so you could keep an eye on Pril in either form? No, from her understanding, that'd require you to bring over a large skyperson machine that'd allow you to hop between bodies. And even then, your human body would need rest just as much as your avatar one did.

Just how—

Ze'te glanced at Ronal, reading her mind, and said, "She gave up her tawtute form."

Ronal's brow furrowed. "What?"

Ze'te shrugged slightly. "The day after she brought you back and began caring for Pril. There was a discussion with olo'eyktan, and he agreed to perform the ceremony."

Ronal sat with the information, processing it.

You… you rejected your human form, the body you had your entire life, your true self… just so you could take care of Pril?

It didn't make sense to Ronal. Why? Why would you give up all you had for the sake of one life? One that was not yours to begin with?

Why? Why why why—

Her thoughts were cut short when, as if summoned from the ether by her confusion, you walked in.

You stopped in place, eyes wide, you and Ronal staring at each other. Sensing the tension, Ze'te rose and left, delivering a light pat to your flank that caused your tail to jolt.

"Oh—" you stammered. "Oh, I— I'm so sorry, I thought— I thought you'd be asleep. I just— I wanted to— I'll leave."

As you went to step out, Ronal said, "Come here, dreamwalker."

You wavered, unsure, before walking further in. You gulped audibly as you lowered yourself to your knees in front of her, visibly wrestling with yourself to not tremble in her presence. You held out Pril towards her, an open invitation for her to take her daughter.

Ronal did not. You slowly brought Pril back to your chest.

"How— um, how are you feeling?" You mumbled awkwardly.

Ronal narrowed her eyes at you and chose to skip over your question. "You have been taking care of my daughter."

A statement.

Your teeth clacked shut, and you nodded stiffly. "Y-Yeah."

"Why?"

One hell of a loaded question, one you didn't know how to reply to.

You could list a million and one reasons as to why you'd tasked yourself as Pril's primary guardian.

They sat on the tip of your tongue, waiting to spill like an overflowing waterfall. You could tell her that you wanted to, or that it just seemed right, or that you had nothing better to do. That you were lonely, had no way to go back to the RDA now, not that you wanted to in the slightest. You had nothing but your love for the ocean, and this baby that you valued more than anything ever to exist, more than your passion for the sea and its inhabitants, more than your life.

In the end, what came forth was the truth.

"I promised," you said, mellow. "I promised you I would protect her."

"Protection does not mean taking her to treat as your own."

You frowned, her words harsh, but no less true than your own.

"I know," you responded, "but this is protection to me. Never letting her out of my sight. I can only know she is safe if I can see for myself."

Tsahìk huffed, her tail waving in agitation. "You sacrificed your demon body."

You fidgeted in place. "Yes."

"For a child that is not yours."

"…Yes."

"You confuse me, dreamwalker," Ronal admitted. "Your kind is evil. A blight to Eywa'eveng. This war has proven so. Why are you different?"

For a while, you had no response. You chewed on the question, no words seeming right in your mind. It felt like anything you could give her would piss her off. You tried to think of justifications for yourself, reasons on how you were different, deserving, worthy.

You weren't. Not to yourself.

"I am no better," you muttered, staring over her shoulder. "I'm human. I'm just as bad as they are. I can say I would never hurt anything, that I'd fight for this world, but I'm not that strong. I've hurt in the past. I can try my best not to, but I'll probably hurt something again in the future."

Your gaze went down to Pril, and you slumped, brushing a thumb over her cheek.

"But never her. I'd never hurt her. I'd sooner cut off my own tail than do anything to harm Pril."

Ronal left you in rigid, unyielding quietude, letting you stew over it. She took you in, from head to toe, ear to tail, weighing your heart on a scale. Of all judgments you had to fear, hers scared you the most.

She had every right and power to rip Pril from your arms and exile you, or order your execution. Her word was above Tonowari's; if she decided something, it was to be done, clan leader or not. Whatever she commanded was law, and to defy her was to defy life, declare it pointless, to be ungrateful. Because if she believed that you did not value your life enough, she would take it to return the energy to the Great Mother, so it may be used on someone more deserving.

Just as you were prepared for her to deliver the decisive, fatal blow, she stunned you by questioning you on something you never considered.

"Have you made tsaheylu with her?"

You blinked. "Wh— no, no! I didn't I swear—"

"You should have," she scowled.

"…Huh?"

"Tsaheylu is vital to a baby's life," she growled at you. You shrank a bit under her withering glare. "It is the first bond. It must be made as soon as possible to make a strong connection. She needs it to become familiar with her mother."

Your jaw dropped slightly, and you floundered. "But— but I'm not her mom. You are, you should be the one to—"

"You have been more of a mother to her than I have. She had bonded with you, and will not recognize me. It will do her more harm for me to make tsaheylu with her."

You deflated, sinking into yourself. "But…"

She jerked her chin at Pril. "It must be done. Come closer."

Obeying, you scooted into Ronal's space. She moved your arms to hold Pril up, and found her short kuru, pinching it lightly between two fingers.

You swallowed thickly, then tilted your head to bring your tswin over your shoulder. Careful to not jostle Pril too much, you freed a hand and took the end of your kuru, lifting it. You trembled, but blessedly, Ronal said nothing of it.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, you brought your kuru up to Pril's, and watched as the pink tendrils wound around each other.

The moment the bond was sealed, everything stopped.

You stiffened, lips parted as emotions you'd experienced before, but that weren't your own, drenched you. Goosebumps rose along your skin, and a blistering heat formed in your chest, like you drank a steaming cup of your favorite tea.

Curiosity, excitement, wonder, love. They all encompassed your thoughts, pure and unfiltered and so, so powerful. Brief flickers of images flashed behind your eyes, blurry and from the perspective of something too small to understand what anything was.

Belatedly, you realized they were Pril's memories, the few she had. Fleeting and fragile. For her, they'd fade away, forgotten before they could stick. But for you?

You'd never forget. Never.

A giggle caused you to reanimate, tension evaporating. Pril looked up at you, a wide smile squishing her eyes into crescents. She giggled again, her hands holding onto her feet as she refused to look away from you.

The sound broke you.

Tears welled in your eyes, too quick for you to fight back. Despite them, you gave her a watery smile, your voice hardly a whisper as you spoke to her. "Hi, baby. Hi. I'm right here. Mama— mama's here."

Until now, Pril hadn't laughed once. Tickling her, playing games, telling her stories, nothing got her to do more than smile. Now, she laughed freely, sweet and unchained, knowing nothing but safety and love, the care you gave and had for her. It was you she saw, you she knew, you she loved. You felt it in your very spirit, the unrelenting and unapologetic attachment she had to you.

A featherlight touch to your cheek startled you slightly, reminding you that you weren't alone with Pril.

You looked up, and found Ronal gazing at you, her typically harsh glare mellowed into something unreadable to you.

"You are her mother," she murmured, a fact you could no longer deny.

You sniffled and beamed at her, leaning into her touch as she cupped her palm against your cheek. She let you, continuing to wipe away tears that never seemed to stop.

"I'll take good care of her, I promise," you vowed scratchily.

"I know," Ronal responded. "Has she had her first communion?"

You shook your head. "No. I asked Tonowari to postpone it. I wanted you to be there for it."

Ronal sighed, but the sound was lighthearted, long-suffering. "You humans know nothing."

Sniffing stuffily, you gave her a wobbly smile. "Will you teach me, then?"

Ronal considered your request. Sincere, heartfelt, hopeful.

"I will teach you," she agreed.

To Ronal's chagrin (and, honestly, anger), it took her a few more weeks to heal until Ze'te allowed her to go to the Spirit Tree to attend Pril's first communion with Eywa. She was strictly ordered to keep her arm in a sling, and rely on an ilu to get her to the tree. In fact, Ze'te took to tying the sling in extra tight knots at Ronal's neck and back, ensuring that the woman would not be able to remove it herself. Asking Tonowari to do it was pointless, too, as he knew better than to indulge her requests if they went against a healer's orders.

Frankly, he was a bit scared of Ze'te himself. Ronal supposed she had nobody to blame but herself, seeing as she was the girl's mentor.

But, as tsahìk, it was Ronal's right and honor to be the one to connect a child's kuru to the Spirit Tree.

You floated as she came to you, smiling at Pril, who you had propped up by her armpits.

In respect, you bowed your head at Ronal, who returned the gesture.

She motioned you forward, closer to the Tree. Ronal brought a frond closer, too, and when she was ready, she connected Pril's kuru to it.

Pril's pupils expanded, and her lips spread into a gummy smile, squirming and kicking her legs. The Tree's light pulsed as the People celebrated, cheers muffled underwater, their joy for the baby and you evident.

Tonight, there'd be a feast, exorbitant and wild. The People will celebrate the victory of their war against the sky people, how the tulkun were not only saved, but convinced to change their ways, and the People will celebrate Pril's entrance into this world, recognizing her as the newest and youngest member of the clan.

But for now, it was just you, Pril, Ronal, and the Great Mother watching over you, welcoming you both into her embrace.

It was Ronal that insisted (ordered) you move into her and Tonowari's family marui.

She situated you in their room, rather than having you sleep in the main room, or in either Tsireya's or Ao'nung's rooms. She was going to set up a hammock for you, too, but you had timidly requested a mat instead, claiming you had gotten used to it. Preferred it.

"The swaying makes me a little sick, too," you admitted in a whisper, embarrassed.

So, she gave you a mat. And layered it in several furs. And blankets. And a couple more furs.

For Pril, of course. Nights on Awa'atlu got very cold, it wouldn't do for the baby to get sick because she wasn't warm enough.

Tonowari knew better. Knew before either you or Ronal that you would be their mate, in time.

His and Ronal's, the mother of their child, your child, in the ways that mattered most.

He saw how Ronal softened to you over time, how her gaze grew fond, how she kept a close eye on you — not out of mistrust, but because she wanted to be sure you were alright. She heckled you about eating, and lightly smacked the back of your head when you complained that your breasts had become sore after the method you used to feed Pril had induced lactation.

"It is a gift," she hissed at you.

"It hurts," you whined.

"Sustaining life is no easy task. But the reward for doing so is profound."

"How did you deal with it?"

"Prayed to Eywa that my nipples would not crack and bleed."

"They can do that!?" You squealed.

Ronal rolled her eyes. "Yes. But I will provide healing paste. Now go feed her before she decides you were too slow today and bites you."

Tonowari knew when her sharpness turned into playful bickering. When she gave you nutritious food and soothing gels unprompted, and when she woke first to comfort you if you suffered a nightmare, humming calming songs and rubbing your back.

He knew when he found her sleeping by you as you slept one evening, tuckered out after Pril had chosen to be a menace all day. Pril was laid beside you, having finally worn herself out on all that crying, snoozing like she hadn't caused her mother hell. Ronal's hand was on your head, absentmindedly stroking your hair, your forehead, your cheek.

Tonowari knelt to her right, touching your knee. You didn't stir, too deep in sleep to be woken so easily.

"You wish to mate with her," he said. A statement, not a question.

Ronal didn't say anything for a few seconds. She didn't react, didn't recoil at the thought of mating with a sky person. She merely kept watching over you and Pril, petting your head.

Eventually, she gave him the smallest of nods. Barely a murmur, she confirmed simply, "Yes."

He hummed.

She peeked at him. "And you?"

"Yes," he agreed. "She has proven herself to me. I can feel Eywa guiding us toward her."

Ronal breathed out softly, her shoulders sinking, relaxing. "We must ask her."

He kissed her temple. "In the morning. Let her rest."

"Of course."

He leaned over your sleeping body, and pressed his lips to your forehead.

"Sleep well, dreamwalker. We pray you will say yes, come the new dawn."

dividers by huxary-dividers and nikkidee ♥