#glow worms

Glow worm cave, New Zealand

Chapter 11: "I Don't Know" (Part 3.2) An Unkindness

Fic Summary: A strange case takes Reigen and Serizawa to a small (intimately so, a detail Reigen might be hesitant to comment on) village North in the mountains, where they quickly discover things are far stranger than they both realized. Not only that, but they might be more than just a little out of their depths.

Nature, the past, it all has a way of being heard - even to those reluctant to listen.

Glow Worms

Or „In the Depths of Safflower Hills“ by Enter_Fool on Ao3 / @creativenicocorner

(read part 1 here)

(read part 2 here)

A/N: So there will be 4 parts, I guess.

With a speech in the name of Eywa, in which Mo’at challenged the initiates’ courage, wishing them good luck during the Dream hunt, she gradually put a glow worm into each of their mouths.

Everyone knew that they couldn’t chew and swallow until they get bitten by the sacred scorpions, so that the poisons would react right. It was why they made weird faces, trying to disconnect from the nauseating feeling of having a writhing body of an annelid against their tongues.

When Mo’at was finally done, she signalled to the bunch of her assistants to bring forward the stone jars with scorpions.

The drums were getting louder and louder, people humming with it, the insane energy accumulating into what everyone could predict as that overwhelming feeling of a momentum magic once it snaps.

To Mo’at’s following gesture, the assistants lifted the lids.

It was smooth. Everyone was moving as one man.

But then, one of the youngsters nervously turned his head to the tsahìk, his eyes wide.

Mo’at carefully stepped closer, looking to where the young boy’s eyes were fixated to, realizing that his container was empty.

Her initial reaction was to feel a slight alarm (to have the sacred scorpion run somewhere around, possibly killing multiple people, was not exactly a tsahìk’s dream, to be honest) and blame the boy, whose gaze was now hanging on her with anticipation of something, probably her wrath.

What would he have to do for the scorpion to disappear from its jar, though? Would he even have the guts to reach for it, knowing full well that the bite could be deadly? Also, judging from the way he seemed in shock, Mo’at could tell that the lad would not dare to pull a juvenile move like this. Thinking of it, having everyone stare at her with anticipation, she realized that no-one from the kids in front of her, who were the only ones with access to the stone jars, would ever do it. They respected the ways of this clan too much for it. And to risk punishment would not be worth any kind of peer pressure and stupid teenage challenges to rebel against authorities. Not today. This could not be a prank...

Many would probably describe the drum roll as something that induced trance-like state, all of the thoughts drowning in the overwhelming sound, and into it, a picture of Tuktirey’s curious forehead wrinkles flashed through Mo’at’s head altogether with her voice: “So the secret to not let the scorpions bite you is to handle them with cloth, then?”

“That’s right, yes. They often climb on it themselves,” her own reply rang in her ears. “And if I need to carry them in my hand, I always use at least four folded layers to separate my skin from them, so that the stingers on their telsons can’t come through.”

Tuktirey also had access to the jars in the morning. She could have stolen one of the scorpions before she left Mo’at’s place–

Oh, Eywa.

She should have known that something was off. Tuk has never before showed interest in the rites. Not to the extent of coming to spend the night to ask questions about them. Her cuddles, which Mo’at interpreted as a need for kindness that her parents struggled with ever since Neteyam’s death, were not at all what she thought, but a calculated step towards Tuk’s goal of doing something really stupid and dangerous.

Mo’at quickly turned around, finding Neytiri’s face in the crowd. Next to her, there was Jake. All their children were in line. But Tuktirey was not under the Spirit Tree, nor by any of her parent’s side.

At one moment, the sound of drums stopped as if somebody cut into it, killing it and letting the deafening silence take the rein over the world. Unaware of the emotional storm happening in Mo’at’s soul, all the adepts moved their hands into the containers. And then, several things happened at exactly the same moment:

First, all the initiates except Spider (whose stone jar, as he also found out, was empty), flinched and hissed in pain, anxiously remembering to chew on the glow worms in their mouths while staring at their bitten hand until their legs started giving out and they fell to the ground one by one, as sacks of potatoes.

Second, Neytiri suddenly understood the look in Mo’at’s eyes, as the tsahìk whispered: “We need to find Tuk. Now.”

And third, a heart wrenching ikran shriek filled the space from somewhere not so far from here.