The dream of flying the skies with the same heartbeat as the mighty animal had come true. Except, the yearning for the freedom to fly to the edge of the forest–to see the ocean– had become a distant fantasy. There was nothing freeing about fleeing for your life or flying into battle, hoping–praying to Ewya, that you might live long enough to fight the next battle. Praying that you might live long enough to hug your family one last time. 

In another life, you would be embarrassed and full of shame at how good you had become at running for your life. A warrior should stand their ground and fight. But you had seen enough death to know when to give up. When to leave. You had developed an advoident style of surviving.

Together, you and your ikran, Leya, had become very good at retreting. Fast and proficient. Flying quickly and smoothly above trees, through the crevices of the flying mountains, above the clouds.

Someitmes you could almost taste the freedom, just there, on the tip of your tongue. Like a word about to be spoken. In the moments of stillness that came from flying above the clouds. Leya’s strong wing beats would level out and a loud, windy silence would settle over the two of you. There was nothing in moements like this. No commands. No explosions. No war. Just the fleeting presence of peace. 

Those moments had become rare: far and few between.

By the age of fifteen, you had become the main source of protection for your two younger siblings. The job had once been split between you and your older brother, but when he died in battle against the sky-people, the weight of his loss fell heavily on your shoulders. 

That was the first time you had painted the white kxetuve line of mourning down the center of your body. 

A body that had become a killing machine. 

You weren’t skinny and frail anymore. The years had begun hardening you. Muscles had grown where they previously hadn’t been. Your legs now taut with stamina to carry your body nimbly through the forest. Your arms and shoulders tense with lethal precision; always ready to aim for the kill. 

Killing the sky demons got easier the more you did it. Poison-coated arrow tips did most of the work; even if the hit wasn’t clean, they would eventually die. Even so, no matter how many humans you killed, they seemed to come back faster, and with their metal abominations were killing off your clan faster than you would comprehend. 

The longer the war went on, the more devastating the losses were. Death had become a friend to your clan.

Bones rattled against themselves, hung in patterns on new garments. Some even had them braided into their kuru’s. The warriors around you wore the human bones with pride. It was an honor to wear so many; to have killed so many. You might have participated in the trend; however, your mother demanded you never adorn the alien ones. 

And you obayed her wishes for a while.

By the next year, you had lost your father and youngest sibling. You didn’t even have time to truly mourn them. No, wave after wave of the aliens came, bringing death and destruction with them. The RDA had begun burning the forest around your clan in an effort to force your clan from their home. From your home. 

The white paint had become as familiar as the yellow and purple war paint. In fact, the white paint had become a second skin. A layer of emotional armor to coincide with your physical armor. 

Just like your paint your armor also hardly left your body.

A traditional necklace of muted teal and bone-toned river stones—once belonging to your older brother—rested heavy against your slender neck. A leather chest band, crafted by your mother after your iknimaya, crossed your torso, doubling as a sheath and resting atop a green, beaded chest covering that echoed the earthy tones of the leather loincloth at your hips. Soft purple riding leggings clung to your legs, their surface marked by wear. Your younger sister had made you an armband as well, adorned with two feathers—one deep violet and one pale yellow—to mirror the colors of your war paint and ikran. You treasured every gift they had given you, but your favorite piece of armor was the sheath you kept after your father’s death.

You took great pride in replacing his knife with a bone balde you had spent weeks crafting out of the remains of the human who had killed him. That had been the first time you had dragged the killing out for your own pleasure. 

If your mother had been displeased at the alien bone you wore daily, she never mentioned it.

By the age of sixteen, the size of your clan had been cut in half in just two years time. 

Traditional celebrations were slipping through the cracks. Effort and time could no longer be wasted on pretty weaving and dancing. Everyone was making sacrifices in hopes that the aliens would give up or die out.

Your presentation was not a clan-wide celebration, like it once should have been, but a quaint meal with your two surviving family members in your family’s hut. 

You hadn’t even been excited when you had presented as an omega. 

At one point, the clan would have called you a gift from Eywa. Your second gender was considered a sacred honor; Eywa’s promise of the next generation secured in your body.

Now survival meant lasting the day, not the procreation of the next generation. 

During war being an omega was less than ideal. 

Your first heat was a war in itself. The pain was unbearable. Heat and sweat coated your body. Your senses shifted. The smell of the people around you shifted; their pheromones appeared louder, sharper than before. The change was an assault to your nose. Shifts in vocal tone had made your body have a physical reaction that only the angry tone of your deceased father could have elicited. Obedience. 

Maybe in some other life, you could have lived out the delicate tradition of going through your first heat with a potential mate. Spent days alone together, feeling out the new changes in your body with soft embraces. But that was not reality. 

No, reality was sudden and rough and all consuming. War waited for no one; granted no reprieve from its constant drumbeat. You fought your way through bodies of pink skins while your biology fought its way through you. 

The years following your presentation were harder. Stress had caused your body to stop going into heat. Which you were glad about; in war, there was no time to be incapacitated with throbbing pain and aching need. There was no need for your body to bring you more pain when the pink skins flourished in their afflicting torment.

By your twentieth year, there were almost as many scars on your body as stripes. Some small injuries, from training too hard or scraping your body against the rough bark of the forest trees when bolting from unwinnable battles. Others, like the one on your left side just above your hip bone, were bigger and deeper. You had been nicked by a bullet and had almost lost your life from the blood loss. The wound had resulted in a raised scar that you preferred to keep hidden under the ties of your green, leather tewng. 

You had developed a true hatred for the metal machines they used to slaughter your people. If it weren’t for the seemingly endless bullet rounds the pink skins had and their metal flying birds, you were sure they wouldn’t have even lasted this long. If they fought like real warriors, with skill and knives instead of cowering in their metal skins and their skin walker suits, they wouldn’t last very long on Pandora. That much you were sure of. 

Humans fight dirty and kill dirty too. They never went for a clean kill. Never spoke to Eywa for guidance. No, they killed for no reason and cared little about how their actions affected the forest. How they had they affected you. 

The kxetuve mourning line hadn’t left your body in all that time. Every time it faded, there seemed to be a new reason to repaint it on your body. Loss was felt each time you had to apply fresh paint…it was hard to keep track of when one friend's death was repainted over by the loss of a fellow warrior. 

And now you had another reason to freshen up the pigment.

A fresh wave of tears was seemingly never-ending despite the wind’s effort to instantly dry them. 

You had been crying for days now. The most recent attack from the sky-people had been devastating. They had attacked while your camp was sleeping. There had been no time to prepare or to defend. 

The cries of your mother echoed loudly in your head. 

You had awoken to her screams.

To your little sister's last breath. 

To the sounds of skin walkers raiding and killing off the last of your people. 

You had begged, pleaded, and implored your mother to flee with you. But she was more than broken; she was lost. After so much grief–the death of her first son, then her husband, then her most recent child, and now her youngest daughter lay dead in her arms–she could take no more. Her eyes, once bright and golden, had been turned dull. Between her screams, she whispered for you to go–to flee; to leave her to die and finally be with the rest of her family. 

You had felt like a child. Not the warrior you were. You were a coward and left sprinting–and soon flying– as fast as you could instead of fighting like you should have. 

That had been nearly two days ago. Leya was begging for rest through the bond; she was tired from the endless flying. You were sore from sitting for so long and wanted to stop just like her, but you were scared to stop. 

You needed to find toruk makto.

You need revenge. 

The thought was the only thing keeping you going. The thirst for blood–for justice–was all-consuming. It outweighed the hunger in your belly and the pain from the windburn on your face. You craved senseless, brutal, savage violence. 

The younger, softer version of you would be terrified of the monster you were willing to become. 

You would have to kill off the last little pieces of her that still lived in you. And if you had lost that soft, innocent version of you for the justice of your younger siblings who would never reach the age of sixteen; for your older brother who you had aged past; for your father who died protecting your clan; for your mother who had given her children to a senseless war; then you would kill off every soft and weak verson of yourself. You would become harsh, rigid, and lethal to avenge their lives. 

You lost count of the different types of terrain you had flown over.

You couldn’t remember when the forest had turned to water, but now the shoreline before you had shifted into another woodland jungle without much time to register the abrupt change in landscape.

Your body ached, protesting every shift in position as Leya descended lower.

The blue ocean that had stretched endlessly before you, its waters darker than you had imagined in all your childhood fantasies, was now a green sea of trees taller and brighter than you had expected. 

Just a little further, you told yourself, though exhaustion made your vision blur at the edges. Just a little more.

The Ometicaya clan came into view gradually—first the massive Hometree rising like an ancient sentinel, then the movement of Na'vi below. So many Na'vi. The sheer number of them made your chest tighten. You hadn't seen this many people alive in one place in years.

Their lives continued. Training. Laughing. Living. Like the war was something distant. Manageable.

The sight of it twisted something violent in your gut.

Leya's landing was far from graceful. Her legs nearly buckled as her feet touched the ground, and you dismounted more like falling than descending. Your own legs shook, muscles screaming from days of sitting astride her back.

The moment your feet hit earth, the noise hit you like a physical force.

Voices—so many voices—shouting, laughing, calling to one another. The clash of weapons from sparring warriors. The thud of bodies hitting dirt. Somewhere, someone was singing a war chant, deep and rhythmic, and others joined in with aggressive harmonies that made your skin prickle.

The Na'vi around you didn't just stop their tasks to stare. They turned. Warriors mid-spar froze with weapons raised. Hunters with fresh kills slung over their shoulders pivoted to track your movement. Even the children stopped their games, wide eyes fixed on you.

You must have looked feral to them. War paint faded and smeared. Mourning line stark against your blue skin. Eyes red-rimmed and wild. Covered in days of grime and dried sweat and blood that wasn't all yours.

Your hand instinctively went to the knife at your hip—the bone blade made from your father's killer was more comforting than you might care to admit—fingers wrapping around the handle.

A low murmur rippled through the crowd. You caught fragments of words. Omega. Alone. Look at her war paint. Is she one of ours? 

The weight of their stares made your shoulders hunch. Made you want to bare your teeth. These people were whole. Their clan was thriving. Their warriors were strong and unbroken and looked at you like you were something strange. Something other.

Everything about them screamed what you weren't. What you'd failed to be.

Your clan was dead. Your family was dead. And you had run.

Survivor. Failure. Coward.

"I need to speak to Toruk Makto." The words came out harsher than intended, your voice hoarse from disuse and crying. Your accent was different from theirs, shaped by a different forest, a different way of speaking. "Now."

An older woman approached, her movements slow and deliberate. She carried herself with the kind of authority that didn't need to be announced—power that radiated from her very bones.

This clan’s Tsahìk you assumed. The title fit her like a second skin. Behind her, a younger woman followed as if she were the older woman's shadow. 

But it was the crowd pressing closer that made your pulse spike. Too many bodies. Too much noise. The scent of so many Na'vi—alphas, betas, omegas, all mixing together in a cacophony that assaulted your nose after days of nothing but wind and Leya's familiar musk.

Your fingers tightened on your knife.

"I am Mo'at, Tsahìk of the Ometicaya," the elder woman said, her eyes sharp as they cataloged every detail of your appearance. Every scar. Every weapon. The mourning paint. Her gaze seemed to pass right through you. Like she was looking into your soul. "This is Kiri, my granddaughter. Toruk Makto is not here.” 

Of course he wasn't here.

Of course.

You had flown for days. Days. Pushed Leya past exhaustion. Fled your mother's corpse and your sister's cooling body and the ashes of your home. And he wasn't even here.

The laugh that escaped your throat was sharp and broken. Several warriors shifted, hands moving toward weapons. You couldn’t care.

"When will he return? Who leads in his absence?" The desperation in your voice made you sound young. Weak. You hated it.

"When Eywa wills it," Mo'at replied, her tone giving nothing away. "What is it you seek, child? His son speaks for him in his absence.”

“I must speak with him then.” You can’t help but growl out in frustration. Child. The word scraped against your pride like a blade. You hadn’t felt or been innocent like a child in many, many years.

“He and his brother fight the sky-people as we speak." Her voice never wavers in tone as she answers your questions.

"And when will they return?” You demand.

The Tsahìk doesn’t answer right away. She tilts her head and, with a hum, begins to circle around you like a predator. 

You straightened your spine despite the trembling in your limbs. Despite the way your vision swam. Despite the crowd pressing closer with their whispers and their stares and their wholeness.

She was assessing you. Decided if you were even worth giving any information to. Only once she's completed a full circle around your weak, shaky form does she speak.

“They will be home by tomorrow evening.” She holds eye contact with you for what feels like a lifetime before you realise she wants an exchange of information. 

The disappointment and frustration of the situation tasted bitter on your tongue. You had flown for days with the singular focus of finding him. Toruk Makto. Jake Sully. The warrior who had done the impossible—tamed Toruk, the great leonopteryx that hadn't been ridden in four generations. The alien who had traded his life to become Na'vi rather than stay with the sky-people he had arrived to pandora with.

Stories of him had reached your clan even in the darkest days of the war. Whispered around fires. Passed between warriors. Legends that felt too grand to be real, and yet the evidence of his existence was undeniable.

He had united the clans. United them. Something no one had accomplished in living memory. Rode a beast of pure fury and death itself into battle against the sky-people and won. Drove them from Pandora with nothing but the will of Eywa and the strength of the people behind him.

Your older brother had spoken of him with reverence before he died. Had said that if anyone could save the Na'vi, it would be Toruk Makto. That he was a lethal legend—a warrior unmatched, tactical and brutal in equal measure. He didn't just fight; he destroyed those who threatened his people.

You had clung to that hope. Through every loss. Every death. Every moment you thought you might break. The thought that somewhere, Toruk Makto was still fighting—still winning—had kept you going.

And now you were here, and he was gone. Off fighting while you stood hollow and broken before his Tsahìk, surrounded by his strong, living, thriving people.

People who looked at you like you were a ghost.

Maybe you were.

"I seek Uturu." Your voice came out flat. Empty. "My clan is gone. I am all that remains."

The murmuring around you grew louder. You caught more fragments now. She seeks uturu? Sole survivor? Her whole clan? 

The girl Tsahìk called Kiri shifted beside her. Her expression shifted to something soft. Sympathetic. It made your skin crawl. You didn't want sympathy. You wanted revenge. You wanted the sky-people to burn the way your home had burned. You wanted them to scream the way your mother had screamed.

Mo'at's expression remained unreadable, but her eyes—those sharp, knowing eyes—narrowed slightly. You watched as she scented the air, and her gaze sharpened further.

"You are omega."

Not a question. A statement. Another assessment.

Around you, the whispers exploded. Alphas in the crowd shifted, their postures changing. Some leaned forward, seemingly interested in the Tsahìk's observation. Others stepped back, wary. You could feel their attention like insects crawling across your skin.

"Yes." You lifted your chin, defensive, aggressive. Daring any of them to make it a problem.

Mo'at exchanged a look with Kiri that you couldn't decipher. The silence stretched long enough to make your teeth grind.

Was there something you didn’t understand? Why was your second gender so important?

"And unmated," Mo'at said, and somehow it sounded like an accusation. 

The crowd's reaction was immediate. Shock rippled through the gathered Na'vi like wind through leaves.  Clearly and unmated omega was wrong to them.  Apparently shameful, even. Given the number of people who stepped further away from you. 

Your jaw clenched so hard it hurt. "There was a war," you bit out. "Mating was not a priority when survival—"

"I understand," Mo'at interrupted, though her expression remained severe. "But you must understand our customs. An unmated omega of your age...it is unusual. It will draw attention. Challenges for you."

Challenges. Of course. You hadn't even considered—

Alphas here probably had rights. Claiming rights. The Ometicaya were thriving, which meant their traditions were intact. Their social structures were unbroken by war. Which meant unmated omegas were probably claimed young, properly courted, and bonded according to ancient customs you'd never had the luxury of following.

Which meant you walking in here unmated, unclaimed, smelling of no alpha, was probably the equivalent of ringing a dinner bell.

Fuck.

"I can fight," you said quickly, and your hand was still on your knife. Still ready. "I have killed more sky-people than I can count. I have survived unimaginable battles. I am not some delicate—"

Mo'at silences you with a raised hand. 

Your mouth snaps shut. It takes the rest of your willpower to keep a frustrated growl inside your throat. This was not a battle of strengths but a test of submission. Obedience. Willingness to obey their clan's hierarchy of leadership. 

You hated it. Hated how your biology was seen first and your skill second. Hated how you were willingly subjecting yourself to be reduced to a weak version of yourself that was helpless, all for the sake of claiming uturu. Claiming uturu for the chance, Toruk Makto will help avenge your clan–your family. 

Mo'at's expression softens, just slightly. "I will grant you temporary uturu. The law is sacred, and you have asked. But you will follow our rules while you are here. Until the Olo'eyktan returns and decides rather to grant you permanent uturu, you will respect our ways."

Relief should have flooded through you. Should have made your knees weak. But all you felt was hollow. You were going to have to play a role to fit in here. Another sacrifice of your character you were willing to make for vengeance.

"Thank you, Tsahìk," you managed. The words tasted like ash.

"Kiri will show you where you will stay." Mo'at turned to her granddaughter, and something passed between them. A look you couldn't read. "The large tent near the edge of the gathering space. It has not been used in some time."

Kiri's eyes widened. "Grandmother, that's—"

"It is available," Mo'at said firmly. "And it is far enough from the main camp to give our guest some... peace."

Mo’at turned to dismiss the gathered crowd. She mumbles a few words to a girl much younger than you. The girl nods and starts to make her way past you and towards Leya. You go to stop her, but a hand on your shoulder stops you.

"Go. Rest," Mo'at said, her tone slightly gentler now. "You look as though you might collapse where you stand. We will speak more when you have slept."

“My ikran…” You trail off, watching as the girl starts to untie your ikrans' saddle straps.

“Nita will take care of her. Now go.” Tsahik’s tone leave no room for argument. 

So you find yourself following Kiri through the clan's settlement, and it was wrong. All of it.

The Ometicaya didn't just survive—they thrived. Their tents were well-made, sturdy, decorated with trophies and weavings and signs of life. Warriors sparred with a viciousness that spoke of skill, not desperation. Their strikes were precise, practiced, and confident. Not the frantic fighting of people who expected to die.

You passed a group of young warriors—barely older than you—laughing as they wrestled, their bodies covered in scars that they wore like badges of honor. Scars from victory. From surviving battles they'd won.

Children ran through the paths, playing with toy ikrans, their laughter high and bright and so fucking innocent it made your chest ache.

Everywhere you looked, you saw what you should have been. What your clan should have been.

Strong. Whole. Alive.

The weight of eyes followed you. Whispers trailed in your wake like smoke.

Omega. Alone. Unmated. Survivor. Failure.

That last one you supplied yourself.

The tent Kiri led you to was far more spacious than you expected. Luxurious, even. Woven mats covered the floor, soft and carefully crafted. Weapons hung on the walls—a bow with arrows that looked like they could tear through metal, several knives with edges so sharp they caught the light, a spear that had seen use. All well-maintained. All belonged to a warrior who clearly knew their worth.

Furs were piled in one corner, creating a sleeping space that looked absurdly comfortable compared to the hard ground and cold stones you'd grown accustomed to.

Trophies lined the walls. RDA dog tags. Pieces of shattered equipment. And bones. Human bones, carefully cleaned and displayed.

This wasn't just any warrior's tent.

This belonged to someone important. Someone lethal.

"This is..." you started, uncertain.

"It's available," Kiri said quickly. Too quickly. Her eyes darted away from yours. "You can rest here. I'll bring you food later, okay? Just... just rest."

She left before you could ask questions. Before you could protest. The tent flap fell closed behind her, and you were alone.

Finally and blessedly alone.

The silence pressed down on you like a physical weight.

You stood frozen in the center of the tent, surrounded by signs of a warrior's life. A successful warrior's life. Someone who fought and won and came home to comfort and safety and a clan that celebrated their victories.

Everything you weren't.

Everything you'd failed to be.

Your legs gave out just as you reached the edge of the furs and you collapsed onto the thick, padded bed, and the scent hit you immediately.

Alpha.

Strong and woodsy with undertones of leather and high-altitude winds and something sharper— something you couldn’t seem to name, maybe some type of oil. It was overwhelming after days of nothing but your own fear-sweat and Leya's musk.

This was an alpha's space, but the scent was faded, and with one last look around the room, you decided that whoever had lived here hadn't been home in a long time. The thought made you unreasonably sad. 

You should leave. Should demand different accommodations. Should drag yourself back to Mo'at and insist on being placed somewhere—anywhere—else. 

You couldn’t stay in the home of a deceased warrior. This hut belonged to someone’s dead son, to a dead brother. It was wrong to stay, but your body had other ideas.

The exhaustion was too much. The furs too soft. And despite the faint foreign scent—or perhaps because of it—something in your omega biology insisted this was safe. Protected. An alpha's den–even a dead one–meant security. 

Your eyes slipped closed against your will.

Just for a moment, you told yourself. Just long enough to catch my breath. To gather my strength.

But the moment you relaxed into the furs, your body made the decision for you. Sleep dragged you under like a riptide, swift and merciless and ruthless.

You didn't even remove your weapons.

The bone knife pressed against your hip, the bow across your back dug into your shoulder blades. Your armor stayed laced tight, a second skin you couldn't bear to shed.

You were safe for now, and that was enough.

@gracestellaerie and I's lore surrounding So-Lo as a character revolves a lot about wartime trauma and the effects it has on the veterans that experience it. So-Lo was relatively young when he joined the armed forces, believing war to be this noble thing fought by the most valiant and brave of men. He wished to assist his country, because he was a patriot, most kids at the time were. How could you not when you were spoon-fed propaganda about the American dream since you were young.

Well, following his basic training and subsequent deployment to whatever nondescript war (Aerie and I like to joke/say that in our boingoverse, every modern war ever happened at the exact same time, so it was likely in either europe, southeast asia, or the middle-east. pick your poison.) So-Lo very quickly learned that war wasn't as it truly seemed. He knew it would be hard, yes, though the difficulty of it was vastly underestimated by it in his mind. It makes sense, he was a kid, most kids overestimate their strength and capabilities. And like those kids, So-Lo swiftly found himself overwhelmed and terrified at the violence and death surrounding him and his peers.

If you've ever watched 'all quiet on the western front' you can start to see the picture, a child essentially groomed into fighting a war meets more than what he bargained for. It was scary, truly scary.

He found himself with the blood of other men on his hands, kids who were also in the same place as he was, traumatized, and groomed by their perspective government. So-Lo killed 3 people up close by the time things were over with, each time, seeing the life drain from their eyes and he had no other choice but to defend himself and his peers from certain annellation.

When So-Lo returned home after around 3 years of combat, he found himself changed. A wide-eyed kid with hope and ambitions in his life, soon because riddled with trauma, injury, depression, and anger/dissatisfaction with the world around him. Who wouldn't? He became rather critical of his government and how they treated veterans after they fought. His welfare benefits weren't enough to keep him stable, and therefore he had to take a job immediately after he returned home instead of resting and seeking necessary council.

Often times, while filing away paperwork, he thinks of what could've been different. Dreams of the battlefield once more, despite not wanting to. A guilty pleasure of his, returning spiritually to the battlefield as he suffers by himself with zero assistance from those around him, and especially his government. Another tally in the war machine.