Paskalin is every proud of my weaving today. Our alcove is really starting to come together. I just needed a tall blue man and an extra pair of hands.
You always told me to wait, find the right one mom. Well I think I did. He was really grouchy and closed off at first. I mean, he made me do drills with my bows everyday for weeks. I was kind of convinced he hated me until he brought me a necklace made from a river stone he found.
I'm still human, but I breathe the pandora air, eat the pandora food, I have a Kuru though I keep it hidden. He's the only one who knows. He accepts the scientist I used to be, the girl who studied in her dorm, now the warrior who carries the guilt of her people on her back like a boulder on her back.
He understands why I don't use my avatar, how it makes the clan uncomfortable.
I'm really happy mom. He's kind, and we are gross and affectionate.
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Ronal @ Neytiri when she finally arrives and sees reader: “🤷🏽♀️We cannot kill it because apparently your Olo’eyktan has made the poor choice to court it.”
THE SPEED IN WHICH I OPENED MY TEMPLATE ALBUM TO RESPOND TO THIS!! My poor girl is going to need a strong ass drink 😂
This is a picture of Ki'anen and Venat. I met them a long while ago when I first came to the plains. Somehow I felt a lot younger then. Now these two are showing me up in dance fighting and looking at each other like they are one another's intended.
Ki'anen will be the one to bring the first courting gift I'm sure of it. Venat is the kind of Na'vi to he completely ... Oblivious (had to talk to Priya to get that word in English again) because he just doesn't think anyone would like him in such a way. Reminds me of me. I remember Tsu'tey being frustrated when he brought his first courting gift and I thought it was just.. nice.
That scowl and the whispered, "skxawng".. could have been little lasers.
I loved these beautiful Avatar fanarts of the ship of Sylwantey/Tsuwanin of the characters Tsu'tey and Sylwanin together and above all, because I really love the fact that in them they are recreating the same image of them in the first book of Avatar but also because I love to see how Sylwanin has his hand under Tsu'tey's chin so that he looked at her while both look deeply and completely in love while it is together in the tree of souls but also because I love how she does not look like a spirit but she survived her death but also because in addition to that I would have loved to see them have their very, VERY deserved happy ending together because they deserved to stay together but also because I would have loved to see them have a family having children because I think that would have been very, VERY beautiful in the movies with them 2 of all possible forms and senses possible but also because although I am glad that we saw Tsu'tey appear at the final of Avatar 3 I would have loved that we had seen Sylwanin with him also because I think he did that but also because I think it would have been very, VERY beautiful to finally see them together... sincerely
By the way, these beautiful Fanarts of them is not mine and the credits are not for me, but unfortunately I can’t leave you the link of the true creator of this beautiful masterpiece because apparently he deleted it and if you ask me, I don’t understand why I would do something like that, but fortunately I managed to rescue the fanart in time
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I loved making this beautiful publication Avatar Edit of the ship of Sylwantey/Tsuwanin of the characters Tsu'tey and Sylwanin together and above all, because I really love having made it have images but also because the images of them together in the visual dictionary of the first book of Avatar I appreciate very but VERY beautiful since I would have loved that we had a scene of Tsu'tey with his beloved Sylwanin when he went to see her in the tree but also because in addition to that I loved how in the comic of Abatar we had scenes of them together although I would also have loved that in the movie Avatar: Fire and Ash at the end we would have seen that not only Tsu'tey appeared but that we would also have seen him for the first time with Sylwanin because the truth I think that both deserve to have their first appearance together on screen but also because I loved it as in the Avatar comic when Tsu'tey connected to the person who went to see it was his beloved who lost Sylwanin but also because I loved how they shared moments together even after she died but also that she was the only one he loved in his life but also because I loved how she comforted him because he lost her but also about his insecurities with respect to having Jake and Grace after everything that happened but also that despite everything Tsu'tey was with Sylwanin looking for comfort with guide but also because I loved how they held hands with her kissing him on his forehead in a loving way to be able to calm him down by seeing him so affected and traumatized after having lost her but also because I loved that when Tsu'tey reconciled with Grace after she returned to the Omaticaya clan the spirit of Sylwanin watched them happy to see them in peace without arguments but above all that she took care of him even in the spiritual world but also because in the comic when they tried to save Grace's life after she was injured I loved how Sylwanin who was appreciated to Tsu'tey with his father Eytukan after his death but also because I loved it as until the end of the comic after he died at the end of the war and went to the spiritual world was his beloved who received him there when they both held hands being finally together although despite that I still look forward to and hopeful that we finally see them having their first scene together in the Avatar 4 movie
but also because although I am glad that we saw Tsu'tey appear at the final of Avatar 3 I would have loved that we had seen Sylwanin with him also because I think he did that but also because I think it would have been very, VERY beautiful to finally see them together... sincerely
If you prefer to read on Ao3, you can find it here!
Word count: 5k
Summary: Fluff before the horrors.
Human!Reader uses they/them pronouns.
The destruction of the Scorpion had fractured something vital in the Demon’s mind.
The inner workings of the spirit were all but lost on Tsu’tey. That healing was better left to a Tsahik. It was not something he could fix with feeble field knowledge or sharp words.
In that way, the hurt they carried now was like a cracked rib, where the best medicine was simple to let it be. Even as it persisted. Even as it refused to be forgotten by pressing metaphorical bone shards into sensitive tissue with every flex of the lungs. And in turn, reminded Tsu’tey of its existence, through delicate skin darkened with ripening bruises.
Whatever had driven the Demon’s relentless resolve had spluttered out and died with only a whisper of smoke left behind in its wake to let either of them know it had ever been there in the first place. When that flame died and the Scorpion’s corpse burnt low, the Demon just stopped.
They stopped talking. Stopped eating. Stopped fishing. Stopped doting on Blue. Stopped surviving.
They just stopped. He was half convinced they’d stopped sleeping too.
They wasted their days intertwined with their blankets and copious amounts of pillows, curled up small on their side, gripping their dogtags like a lifeline and staring into nothing. They scarcely twitched when Tsu’tey spoke to them, the language didn’t matter. Barely made the effort to do something as small as turn over, even when it had been long enough that Tsu’tey’s own joints winced in sympathy.
Listening to the breathing was the worst part. It was even, and controlled, and painfully forced. An artificial rhythm like the steady drum of their boots when they marched their late night patrol around the island’s circumference.
In and out. The exact amount of seconds each way. For hours. It was painfully unnerving. Only interrupted by the periodic beeping of their dying exomask battery. Flashing orange at half charge. Then red at ten percent. And finally, that dreaded low note seconds before it was too late.
He changed it for them twice. Once, when they actually appeared to be asleep, and the second when they hadn’t bothered uncurling their fingers from their dogtags to do it themselves. He’d been across the shack, tending the flames, periodically glancing up to check if they’d moved, only for his throat to tighten with mounting concern when they failed each time.
“I will not let you die like this.” He’d informed them irritably, too unsettled by the lack of self-preservation to dare try to read their expression. He already knew he wouldn’t like whatever emptiness replaced their usual cheeriness. “It would be pathetic to watch.”
A dry chuckle that seemed to cost too much effort, was his only response, as he fiddled with the equipment’s battery holder. Then the Demon swallowed around a parched throat and actually pushed out words for the first time in what felt like days. “You could always close your eyes.” They suggested, voice creaky and strained from disuse. They stretched cracked lips into a poor imitation of a smile to lighten the suggestion into a joke, but it did not succeed.
Tsu’tey just felt violently ill instead. Decidedly, he picked the old battery from the device and made a point of addressing eye contact before clicking the replacement in. “It would be an obnoxiously loud death.” He’d corrected, “hard to ignore, and I might end up throttling you for it.”
After that, they were more proactive in keeping the mask charged. It wasn’t much of an improvement, what with the charged battery being placed within arm’s reach by Tsu’tey, and them having to only snake their hand out from between the blankets to get it, but it allowed him to get on with his tasked without fear of returning to an asphyxiated corpse.
Someone had to feed the ikran, after all.
>_<
He allowed them to wallow until his patience was on the cusp of snapping.
Then he literally took matters into his own hands. ‘His own hands,’ being him striding into the shack after a long morning of gathering fish that were reluctant to venture too close to the island after the machinery fire on the beach, with little rest on his part. His nights following the attack had been spent securing the island and watching over his companion.
He aimed straight for the Demon’s nest upon ducking into the shade, located an arm and a leg amongst the mess of fabrics, before promptly sliding them out into the open and onto the sandy floor trodden smooth by their collective footsteps.
The Demon blinked themselves out of their head, abruptly coming to the realisation that they were no longer warmly cocooned within their nest. Tsu’tey released the limbs in his grasp when the Demon lightly tugged on them, and waited.
They didn’t get up. Just folded their hands over their sternum and accepted the change in their location as if they had put themself there. When they tipped their head back further into the sand and met his gaze, he was relieved to find something that actually looked like a presence behind their eyes instead of the unsettling blankness that had been residing there as of late.
“Good morning, my unnervingly strong and stubborn friend.”
He refused to acknowledge the evaporation of tension from his shoulders at the sound of their voice. Even and full of calm ease once more, even if tiredness still lingered. “Up.” He bit out to cover up the warmth their voice awakened beneath his ribs.
“A wonderful suggestion, but I don’t want to.”
“Then it is good I did not ask for your wants,” he returned with deadly sweetness infecting his tone. “Up.” They did not move. He narrowed his eyes at them and tilted his head. “You waste daylight, and I am sick of it.”
“Dude-”
“No! I am not your ‘dude’, address me properly, or not at all.”
With an exasperated sigh, they tried again, “Tsu’tey-”
“No! Wrong again.”
They blinked, mouthed the shape of his name soundlessly before tipping their head back to meet his gaze once more. “I butchered the pronunciation again, didn’t I?”
“No, that was fine,” he reassured. “But it was still not right.”
“…Big guy….?”
“Yes, my infuriating, little demon, what troubles you?”
They just stared back at him. “You’re in a weird mood today,” they concluded.
“And you are lazy. Now, up. I have scarcely been able to keep that pest of yours from breaking in here to eat you, it is time you dealt with her foul attitude and returned to your duties.”
“You’ve been feeding Blue?”
“Unwillingly,” he provided. Resolutely refusing to entertain flashbacks of wrestling the beast for his catch, only to have to return to the shallows for more whilst nursing a bruised pride.
“Even though she’s been causing you problems?”
“I believe it is because she misses you.”
That seemed to finally break through the fog. “Shit,” they breathed before hauling their body up into a sitting position with a groan and a hunched spine, a startling number of their bones crunching from the motion. “I’m such a bad bird parent.”
“Ikran,” he reflexively corrected as the Demon rolled over onto their hands and knees before finally standing.
“Rude,” the Demon informed him. “You’e supposed to jump in and reassure me that I’m still learning and I have potential.”
He scoffed. “Teach her some proper manners and maybe then I will praise you.”
>_<
The ikran was as rude, as she always was when Tsu’tey had the misfortune of coming across her.
Snapping and spitting over a basket of fish that no one had even a shred of desire to take from her. She loomed over it, wings braced on either side of the basket like a living wall. She'd dip her head long enough to snap up a fish, only to swing her head up and throw it to the back of her gullet with a horrific crunch, her head turned to the side so that she stared directly at them as she chewed.
The Demon was disgustingly enamoured by the sight.
Crouching a respectful distance from the feeding beast in Tsu'tey's shadow, they looked more alive than they had in days. His companion appeared soothed by the disrespectful creature. Watching her with a serene little smile on their face, how one might look at a child learning their herbs. It was an out of place look to be directing at Blue’s bad attitude. Had it not been the cause of their first smile in days, he might have commented something snide to dissuade them from encouraging the beast. But as things were, he allowed the moment to pass.
"Why does she seek you out?" They shot him a look, one that clearly asked if he's taken one too many knocks on the head. He huffed and rolled his eyes, before elaborating. "Ikran are accomplished hunters, why would she resort to scavenging?"
The Demon grimaced, and broke eye contact.
"What did you do?" Tsu'tey reflexively asked.
Their shoulders jumped up to their ears. "It wasn't on purpose or anything!"
"But?"
They shot him a scathing look. “In my defence, if I’d had any control during the crash, I would have aimed for the sodding sea, not the bloody trees.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“I crushed her nest.” The Demon exhaled guiltily. Tsu’tey rounded on them, eyes shot wide. They flinched on reflex. “I found egg shells. Big ones.”
“How are you not dead?” He breathed.
“I bribed her.”
“You killed her brood.” He all but accused, to which they rightfully winced once more.
“Well technically, the scorpion did. I’d scarcely hauled my melting ass out of there before she was attacking it.”
Tsu’tey studied them, then glanced at the ikran currently shoving her mau even deeper into her basket. Honestly, she seemed completely unbothered by any wounds the Demon had unintentionally inflicted on her. Whether because the constant supply of food had somehow appeased her pissy nature, or because they’d come to see the Demon as something other than a pest, he was not certain.
“Every sentence out of you makes me more and more confused as to how you are alive.” He said simply, to which they snorted.
“After all we’ve been through, you still doubt my powers of persuasion?" The light joke managed to break whatever tension had been brewing between them.
"My nephew has a more effective way with words, and he strongly takes after his father."
"Considering I don't know your nephew, or his father, I'm going to pretend that was a compliment."
"It wasn't."
"Just let me pretend."
“Your level of delusion is unnerving,” Tsu’tey dryly informed them without missing a beat.
>_<
Tsu’tey filled the heavy silence of dinner with mindless complaints about home.
The Demon had wilted again come sundown, as if the lack of sunlight on their skin had allowed them to sink back into the cold, lifeless place from before. Whatever the incident had fractured in them was clearly not fixed, but he could see that they were better in the way they ate what he put in front of them, and the way they abruptly interjected an unrelated personal statement when he paused in his words to take a bite.
“I knew a guy that defected and joined the Na’vi a decade back. Norm something, I think, wonder if he’s still kicking about.”
Tsu'tey stilled mid-chew, eyes snapping to the little Demon, who'd said their piece and promptly lifted their mask to shovel more food into their mouth.
"You know Norm?" He blurted almost accusatorily.
The Demon's mask hissed as it suctioned back to their chin. The firelight danced across the lens as they blinked back at him, their eyebrows vague shapes against the glare of the flames as they knitted together. “YOU know Norm?” They parrotted back at him, all but pointing a finger at him.
“He is an annoyance?” He offered, just to see if this was a simple coincidence.
They snorted. “Doesn’t stop talking, huh?”
“Never. The last time our paths crossed, he tried to explain fish to me. Fish. I know I am no reef dweller, but I know what fish are and what they do.”
His companion chuckled again. “I’ve never seen you so passionate about fish before.”
He scowled at them. “How do YOU know him?” Tsu’tey pressed, “you said you left the planet to get your leg fixed.”
“We grew up in the same part of town back on Earth,” they explain and at Tsu'tey's quizzical ear flick, they fumbled for an equivalent. “Ugh, we, um, grew up in the same community?”
Tsu’tey’s ears pricked up. “Like a clan?”
“Sure, the same clan?”
“How peculiar, considering I am led to believe your world is quite large.”
“Yeah, well, the RDA is a big company with a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. A lot of people aspire to join. Pandora is sold so nicely to us, without all the dangerous wildlife and toxic air thrown into the mix.”
“I see.”
“I went to school with his sister. He was always getting picked on, so between us we kept him safe. And when I went off to the academy to train, and it looked like we were both headed out here, his family asked me to keep an eye out for him. Too bad I fucked up my leg and got rotated back before he even stepped foot out here. God, with all the time I spent in cryosleep coming back and forth, he’s probably technically older than me now.”
“How much cryosleep exactly?”
“Well, three trips. My first tour here and back, and then the one way here. That’s about eighteen years…” their eyes grew distant, fingers counting up as they tried to work it out before promptly dismissing the task. “I don’t fucking know. Shit gets confusing.”
“That is a lot of your life to lose.” Tsu’tey says sympathetically.
“Eh, hardly noticed. My folks were older when I got back the first time, but I knew that would happen regardless. The fact I survived long enough to see them again was a miracle in and of itself.”
>_<
The Demon had become fixated on creating improvised weapons, and Tsu'tey was their unwilling training dummy.
After having run out of bullets, and most of the Scorpion's supplies and the bodies of the marines having been destroyed in the explosion, they'd had to resort to more natural means of defending themselves, including, but not exclusive to, fistfuls of sand, pebbles, shells, and most recently, whatever stick they'd come across whilst foraging.
"Quick question," came their voice from behind Tsu'tey.
He deposited the fruit he'd just picked into the basket propped on his hip and turned. "Yes?"
"Does this hurt?"
"Does wha-"
He should've expected it at this point, when they slammed a comically large stick, longer than they were tall, into the hollow of his knee. He cursed, and almost dropped his basket, both from the unexpected hit, and because they'd somehow managed to hit his pressure point which made his leg buckle.
"Huh. Noted."
The sound of them tearing off into the undergrowth immediately afterwards, informed him that they knew he would retaliate.
"COME! HERE!" He snarled after them, dropping his basket in favour of snatching up a branch that was mostly leaves and flexible twigs rather than the firm branch they'd used on him, and gave chase.
>_<
“I’m bored.”
The heavy rain keeping the Demon contained in the shack with him seemed to taunt him as it briefly fell harder.
He allowed the statement to stew in the humidity for a moment as he carefully whittled a piece of driftwood into what would eventually become his newest songcord edition. Although his time on the island so far had been trying, he still thought it important to immortalise the experience in at least a line of his song. The melody had been stuck in his head all morning, and the rain had been a good enough excuse to finally waste a morning on such trivial things.
“What do you intend for me to do about that? If you are idle, find a task and stick to it.” He repeated the age old advice of his youth.
The Demon did not appear to appreciate the wisdom of his elders, as they groaned pathetically and rolled over onto their side. They hadn't even bothered to lay comfortably on their mess of pillows, and had instead plopped themself in the middle of the shack, their threadbare clothing clinging to them uncomfortably from their brief stint in the rain an hour ago, only for the force of the storm to offer no choice but the safety and warmth of the shelter. Their back was no doubt picking up every loose grain of sand they were laying on, with even more working its way into the folds of their clothing from all their mindless thrashing, but Tsu'tey presumed such an obvious statement would go unappreciated.
“Can’t be asked.” Came the Demon's childish reply.
He huffed an amused breath out of his nose and kept his head bent over his task. “Then do not complain to me."
A beat of silence broken only by the musical plop of rain hitting canvas. Then he felt eyes on the side of his face.
“Want to compare hand sizes?”
The request was so random, that his knife blade briefly stalled mid-sweep along the length of the driftwood shard. He cleared his throat, finished the stroke, and repositioned his blade for the next. “I need my hands for my task that I intend to stick to.”
“Come on, it won’t take long.” He lowered his ears and cut them a look that had sent hunters three times their size promptly retreating, only to freeze when he realised that they already had their hand extended out towards him, fingers together and their palm turned out to him. Sprawled on their back, with their head turned to the side to properly see him, the arm waved in the air as they focused on keeping it up there. Sceptically, he glanced at it, then back down to their face. They grinned. “I know you want to, big guy.” They wiggled their fingers, as if such an action would entice him to humour them.
“What is the point of this exercise?”
“Quite stalling and just touch me already.”
“Why? What are you planning?”
“Tsu’tey.” They huff and he relented quicker than he would've liked, his tail thumping against the ground as if that would've made matters less embarrassing.
Allowing his knifehand to take the bead, he reached out his free one to them, his palm facing out towards them with his fingers neatly aligned. The Demon looked momentarily surprised that he was even offering, before the expression was promptly swept aside and they reached for him.
The first touch could only have been described as the anticipation before a lightning storm broke. That built in humidity and tension in the air, pulling tighter and tighter, until it felt like the very heavens would split apart from the pressure. He'd touched the Demon before, obviously. An accidental brush here. The times he'd patched them up after an injury. The humorous fish incident. But all of those occasions had been brought about by necessity, rather than simple want. He'd touched the Demon because it had been life or death, not because he was curious or just because he could.
That made all the difference now, as their palms collided. Their entire hand, from fingertip to heel, barely covered his palm. Their skin was strangely warm against his. Their fingertips were calloused and scratched against his own. They were hands built from a hard life. Similar to his own, even if the patterns varied due to the differences in their respective paths.
“Huh," the Demon said, brow furrowed in thought.
“What does that mean?” He asked calmly.
They shrugged, an odd maneuver considering their current lounging position.“You run cooler than I was expecting.”
He scoffed. “You’ve spent most of my stay on this island with your hands on me one way or another. How have you only just perceived this?”
“That’s different. Clinical. This is just for fun.”
“Is it? Are you having fun touching me, little Demon?” He prodded, grinning with his fangs visible. “What is next? You wish to braid my hair and feel along my tail?”
They rolled their eyes and pulled away from his touch, taking that weird, brewing-storm sensation with them. His hand felt cold in their absence. The Demon rolled their head away from him, the ear facing up towards the shack canopy staining with warmth.
“Are we finished now?” He asked after a beat too long of forced silence.
“Ye-yeah, you’re good, big guy.”
He returned to his task, and they continued lounging in the middle of the floor, the hand that had touched him laying on their chest, rubbing seemingly absentminded circles. “For the record, I’d like to touch your ears next." They told the tent side opposite him. "They look velvety, like a cat’s.”
“I do not know what that is, but regardless, you will have to earn it.”
>_<
“You sure stay up watching the entrance a lot.”
Tsu’tey continued sharpening his knife with his stone, ear flicking in their direction but his attention set on his task. “We were attacked once already, it stands to reason one of us must be awake to keep watch. And I do not trust you not to fall asleep on the job.”
“What? So you just don’t sleep?”
He allowed his continued silence to be his response.
The Demon shifted on their nest, the blankets pooled around their waist. “You’re ridiculous.” They concluded.
He refused to allow the remark to offend him. The less he spoke, the greater chance they would simply fall back asleep.
To his dismay, the Demon instead decided to slip free of their nest. Knife in hand, they clambered clumsily out of the tangle of blankets, closed the distance by circling around the fire's embers, before sitting themself down beside where he sat cross-legged, eyes trained on the tent flaps.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping watch.”
A beat of silence. He broke it. “Can you even see with your pathetic little demon eyes?”
A heavier silence. Almost defiant. “No, but my ears still work. And your lot glows in the dark. Pretty easy to shoot at.”
“You have no more bullets.”
“Okay then, stab. You’re easy enough to stab. Happy?”
He glanced down at them as they sat motionless in the darkness of the shack. Moonlight and bioluminescents poured their light in through the gap of the tent flaps, whilst Tsu'tey's freckles softly illuminated the immediate space around him. The Demon did not give off such light. In comparison, their stillness made them almost invisible in the unnatural darkness of the tent. In the forest, their lack of light would have made them stand out ridiculously in the undergrowth, but here, they were unnervingly camouflaged.
He was not certain when he dropped off, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic breathing at his side, but he had an awful crick in his neck when he peeled heavy eyelids open to sunlight, and the weight of something warm sprawled out across his thigh, the edge of the Demon's exomask digging uncomfortably into the muscle beneath their cheek.
>_<
The Demon swore colourfully, their voice tumbling from their lips in harmony with their laughter, as they dove to the side to avoid Tsu'tey's artfully executed spray of water. His own laugh roared to life deep in his chest as his blow landed, drenching the cheeky little thing in buckets of water. They gasped as the chill hit them, their arms held out awkwardly from their sides, as if that would keep their cold shirt from clinging to their skin.
"That's cold!" They complained.
"You started this!" Tsu'tey reminded them, his chest light.
They circled one another. Tsu'tey's tail raised in an open challenge, whilst his ears were turned forward and out. The Demon matched his every step with three of their own, their boots hindering them in the uneven shallows. But they persevered, recovering from every caught foot on a submerged rock, and every stumble. Their chilled stance melted into one of offense, shoulders loosening as they began to lose themselves in the adrenaline, lips peeled back to display blunt teeth behind their mask.
"You were complaining that you were too hot!"
"And you took that as an invitation to attack me with sea water?"
"It was the obvious solution."
He snorted. The 'obvious solution' had been the bucket of fresh water tucked within the shack. Not this. But he could not deny that he wasn’t against this progression of events. The day had otherwise been uneventful. So what if he was currently tumbling in the surf with an alien? Acting half his age and laughing like he hadn't in years? There was no one around to witness it, besides the very cause of-
A wave of chilling sea water chased the thoughts right out of his skull, as he gasped and tried to dodge an onslaught of water too late. The Demon cawed in victory, cockily following up the attack with a second. He dodged this one, catching them whilst they were still low in the water, by sweeping his tail wide. The resulting wave swelled and broke, drenching them once more.
"-fucking hell," they chuckled, futilely wiping at the screen of their mask with their dripping hands, only to fruitlessly bend at the waist to introduce their drenched shirt into the mix. When neither proved to clear the screen, they laughed at themselves and gave up."I feel like I'll never be dry again."
Their hands fell to their hips, as they caught their breath, the moonlight catching on the water clinging to their form. The bioluminescent particles clinging to the droplets continued to shine, even whilst dotting their skin and clothes. They gave the appearance of a na'vi's freckles, a unique constellation that Tsu'tey briefly mourned would be swept away when the Demon dried.
He was so entranced by the unexpected sight, that he foolishly left his flank open. A weak point the Demon effortlessly exploited. They lunged. His arms swept down to his side to protect his ribs from the inevitable blow, but the clever little thing went lower, barrelling into his legs instead. His footing so far had been a gamble, the advantage of his tail the only difference between his and the Demon's graceless circling. Its presence did little to save him, when a hip-high mass collided with him with the force of a charging 'angtsik.
The shriek he let out was a noise he would later deny until he was purple in the face. His arms flew away from his sides in a useless effort to steady himself, only for the Demon to then cinch their arms tight around his knees and steal what little remained of his balance. He landed hard on his ass in the surf, the next wave crashing over his head and completely soaking him.
Still tangled in his legs, the Demon was already laughing when the seawater drained from his ears. Water slid in a wave off their back as they hauled themselves up off of their stomach, small hands balanced on his calves, as Tsu'tey scowled playfully down at them.
"That was a dirty trick," he informed them testily.
The Demon grinned wider. "And it fucking worked!" They gloated, practically bubbling with pride. "All that carbon fibre bone and stupid muscle, and you go down like any other big fucker I've spared with."
"Yes, yes, laugh it up." He pushed them away, and they slid off of him into the water. They came up grinning, the bioluminescents in the water clinging to the acrylic of their mask, giving their skin the deceptive illusion of possessing syuratan. "You are very clever and very efficient."
"Damn fucking right I am!"
The confidence was endearing. The toothy grin was almost alluring in its predatory quality. He looked down at the Demon with a fond tilt to his head, his braids heavy and waterlogged as they dripped on his shoulders. The Demon gazed back up at him, their pupils blown despite the strong moonlight. They were breathing hard. Fast. The rapid puff of their exo-mask was almost distracting enough to make him miss the heat gathering in their ears. A by-product of exertion perhaps?
"Something on my face?"
He blinked, and realised with horror that he'd been staring. Internalised panic made him lift a hand, plant it on the acrylic of their mask, and firmly push them off his legs into the surf. The Demon squawked as the water closed over their head, their breathing equipment leaving a trail of bubbles in their wake. Taking advantage of their exomask, they pushed a hand above the surface and flipped him off.
Huffing in satisfaction, Tsu'tey hauled himself to his feet, and tried to wipe as much water off his body as possible.
He heard the Demon surface at his back, muttering under their breath. Flicking his tail to remove more of the excess water, he tried to encourage the situation back to dry land and warmth. "Come. We have wasted enough time playing in the waves like children-"
The splash of retaliation his companion had the audacity to aim at his back chilled his skin anew. He bit off his sentence, sinking his teeth into his lower lip to keep from letting out an indignant noise, as the shocks of cold raced up and down his spine, his tail quivering from the sensation. Slowly, he turned.
The Demon was on its feet again, bent at the waist, arms spread in anticipation. Their eyes practically sparkled with adrenaline as they took a cautious step back.
Tsu'tey, far from being above letting such an attack go unretaliated - which was certainly how they'd gotten here in the first place - mirrored their stance and tensed.
The Demon's body caught onto what his intentions were before their mind did.
"Oh shit!" They blurted, glee evident in the exclamation, as they clumsily turned and tried to put distance between them, but the water was too high for their legs to be effective. He graciously gave them a headstart, waiting until they'd almost made it out of reach. Then he pounced.
