Meet Irwi, who came out of a semi-random thought I had that I just ran with - that being, we’ve seen severing someone’s queue be used as a threat on par with straight-up killing them, and I don’t think most of us have to think about it all that hard to imagine how terrible it would be, so... what happens when someone does lose their queue and lives to tell the tale?
So, Irwi, who lost hers in a horrible accident, a near-death experience with a thanator whose jaws closed on her tswin instead of her torso, and who for a while there is not sure it was the luckier outcome. She loses tsaheylu, the direct bond to Eywa that is as near and dear as life itself to the Na’vi - and she finds her way to make life worth living anyway.
More on her upcoming, so I won’t give everything away.
(Also ft. my headcanons on how the Na’vi queue works - basically, that they have a fleshy queue like other Pandoran animals that they braid the longer, coarser tswin-hair around for an extra layer of protection. For some reason I tend to imagine tswin as referring to the whole complex and kuru as being more specific to the flesh-and-blood part, but that’s 100% not canon and I should probably make an effort to drop that habit xD I also headcanon that the wavy tendril-y bits at the ends of queues aren’t literally exposed nerves (for just. so many reasons jfkdjs) but are instead a specialized organ of their own, so once they’re severed making tsaheylu with the severed end would be impossible, hence why Irwi’s was encouraged to heal with scar tissue closing over the severed end to protect the nerve tissue inside.)
