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sableflynn · 2 months ago

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Out unseen - ch. 13

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Elyse and Volkan have a conversation. Anna goes deeper undercover.

contents: beatings, referenced noncon, and the one and only ✨forced to watch✨

Read on Ao3

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Elyse had never wanted to be a leader.

Strictly speaking, she wasn’t—they weren’t any sort of formal team or anything with a hierarchy, they were a group of friends sharing an apartment and trying to fix some of the wrongs in the world. But stakes grew higher, and decisions had to be made, and one day Elyse realized everyone was turning to her for the last word. Trusting her to make the right call.

She took it on, because she had to. But now Felicia was gone, and the note from Volkan sat on her desk and burned a hole in her mind, and she wished more than anything that someone else could tell her what to do.

1 pm. To discuss the enclosed. Come alone. It was 12:55.

She’d attached the calling charm to her mirror, locked everyone else out of the room, and now all she could do was count the seconds in her beating heart. Autumn rain lashed the window outside, ripping bright leaves from trees in sodden clumps, darkening the room even in midday. The shadows stretched long across the hardwood floor, leeching the color from everything they touched.

Elyse barely spent time in the bedroom anymore. Everything that had once been a comfort was now a sharp pain, a pick in her chest, a reminder she couldn’t ignore. By daylight she found herself anywhere but there, keeping herself busy, convincing herself she was making progress. When night fell and exhaustion finally dragged her to her cold, empty bed, she lay alone, images of Felicia burned into her mind, Felicia tortured, raped—

Elyse drew in a shuddering breath and forced herself to stare into the mirror.

12:56. Felicia’s hairbrush sat on the table, coppery strands still wound in the bristles. A hair elastic was wrapped around the handle.

12:57. A soft green skirt lay on the ground where she’d slid out of it before slipping into bed. Elyse couldn’t bring herself to put it away. It would feel like giving up.

12:58. 12:59.

She blinked, and Volkan was there.

It was like looking through a window into another room a world away. He was in what must be his office, relaxed in a leather chair, framed by the bookshelves lining the wall behind him. As she took him in, took in his room, she realized he was looking not at her but past her, taking in her own room in turn. She knew what he saw: the unmade bed, Felicia’s clothes left on the ground, absence filling the space like a ghost. Elyse twitched with the suppressed desire to block his view of the room.

The faintest smile ghosted his face; she wanted to break through the glass and slap it off of him.

“Elyse.” He inclined his head at her in greeting. “It’s a delight to meet you at last.”

“Let me see her.” She wanted the words to be firm, cold, authoritative, but she sounded like nothing so much as a petulant child.

“Are you sure you want her here for this conversation?” He leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “It could be—”

“Let me see her.”

Volkan held her gaze, and then his smile broadened, and he stood. “One moment.” He walked out of her line of vision, and he was gone.

Her nerves were tingling. She gripped the edge of the desk, leaning close to the mirror, and then a few seconds or hours later, Volkan returned with Felicia.

She was Felicia, the Felicia who Elyse loved, the Felicia of the photos, the Felicia of Elyse’s nightmares. Warm red hair gone lank and dull, freckled skin a marbled canvas of white and black and blue, arms crossed across her chest in a futile protective gesture.

The worst of it all were the tiny details Elyse’s nightmares couldn’t capture. It wasn’t just the exhaustion in her eyes, the slip of a dress that did nothing to hide the bruising covering her body. It was the way she hunched into herself, barely perceptible but always present. It was the casual ownership in Volkan’s touch, the way he moved her body around like nothing. It was the way something in her faded every time Volkan’s hands touched her skin. Elyse had never seen Felicia make herself small before.

“Felicia,” she said, her throat dry, swallowing against the tremor in her voice. Felicia’s gaze bored into her, gripping her heart with its intensity, and her mouth silently formed Elyse. Behind her, Volkan settled his hands on her bare shoulders, and she flinched but held her gaze.

This is a game for him, Elyse thought—and it had been obvious from the start, but she felt it more starkly now than ever, as his greedy gaze drank up her every flicker of reaction. Even now, able to see Felicia for the first time in a month, her reaction was nothing but a performance for him, her grief another layer of entertainment.

She needed to cut to the chase, to ask him what he wanted, why he had arranged this meeting, but all she could do was take in Felicia, scared and strong, chest rising with shallow breaths, bruises darkening her cheekbone, Felicia—

“She’s been a great help with my research,” Volkan said, his large hands rubbing circles into Felicia’s shoulders. “Felicia, tell Elyse about what we’ve been doing together.”

Felicia swallowed and stepped away from Volkan’s touch. “He…we…”

It was the first time Elyse had heard Felicia’s voice since she’d been taken and it was a shard in her heart. Felicia glanced back towards Volkan, and when she turned to look at Elyse again, there was something of fire in her eyes. She began to speak very quickly.

“We’re somewhere up north. The trees—there’s woods, and a town nearby, and I can see mountains—”

Volkan moved faster than her eyes could track, and the sound of the slap rang out before she could process what Felicia had said. She stumbled from the slap, her steps making distance between them, her hand to her cheek and the fire still in her eyes. Volkan, more amused than anything, opened his mouth to speak, but Felicia cut him off.

“He’s working with Gabriel Davids, from the university—”

The amusement was gone from Volkan’s expression, and when he hit her, it wasn’t a slap, but a punch to the jaw. Elyse gasped, and Felicia fell back, and Volkan hit her a second, third time.

It was the photos come to life, and it was worse than Elyse could’ve imagined. She breathed out, “Stop,” and hated herself for the distance between them, and with another blow Felicia collapsed to the ground. Volkan studied her fallen form, gave a final kick to her ribs, and the smile that returned to his face had a darker edge to it.

“You’d think she would’ve learned what her mouth is for by now,” he said conversationally, nudging her curled form with his shoe.

Elyse’s fists were curled, nails digging hard enough to draw blood. She bit down the half-dozen retorts—she couldn’t afford to antagonize him, not with Felicia at his feet, unmoving—and tried to keep her voice steady as she asked, “What do you want?”

“For her?” He glanced down at Felicia, then smiled back up at Elyse. “You tell me. What are you willing to offer to get her back?”

She studied him, his self-assured smile, the easy confidence. He had to have an angle. He hadn’t bothered to arrange this meeting for nothing. “You aren’t looking for money…” she began cautiously.

He held her gaze a heartbeat longer, daring her to continue, and then dipped his head in acknowledgement. “You need to stay out of my business.”

It wasn’t completely unexpected, but she watched him warily. He stepped over Felicia as if she weren’t there, walking closer to Elyse—no, closer to the mirror.

“I’ll admit, it was charming at first, watching you and your friends make your attempts on my operations. Darya and Kailo, always sticking their noses in my trade deals. You and Marcus, staking out my home like you’re going to make a difference. You’ve assembled quite a little crew.”

(He didn’t mention Anna, she realized, his intel isn’t flawless—and then she halted that train of thought before her expression betrayed her.)

“But it ends now.” Despite his affected air of casualness, his eyes were hard. “You call off your friends, you stop interfering with my operations, and you end your ridiculous attempt at investigating matters that don’t involve you.”

So somewhere, the work they’d been doing struck a nerve. But she’d give it up a million times to get Felicia back. “We do that,” she said, scared to believe it was that easy, “and you’ll let her go?”

“No.” The word was a knife. “You do that, and I won’t strangle her and send her back to you in pieces.”

The heat rose in her voice. “You’re already going to kill her either way—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to kill her for no reason.” Behind him, Felicia had pulled herself up to sitting, but made no move to stand. Her face was blank. “Once we finish our work together, I’ll sell her off to someone else. You can pester them if you still want her back.”

She opened her mouth to protest, to argue, but he cut her off. “This isn’t a business meeting. I’m not offering you a deal.” He was close now, and his eyes were cold. “I’m giving you a warning.”

Her breath caught in her chest. He was watching her, tracing her reaction, and her mind was buzzing. She looked past him to Felicia, who was still sitting with her legs curled beneath her, whose lip was bleeding and whose eyes were a thousand miles away.

If Volkan ended the conversation, Elyse would never see Felicia again. The door was quickly closing, and she needed to force it back open.

She locked eyes with Volkan and said, “Then let’s make this a business meeting.”

He raised an eyebrow at that and looked almost impressed—fuck him, she wasn’t trying to impress him, she didn’t want his approval—and he nodded. “Go ahead.”

Keep him talking. She needed more information, and she couldn’t ask any more of Felicia. He had the upper hand, and he knew it, but the more he spoke, the more likely he’d let something useful drop.

Hating herself for playing along with him, hating the question, hating the answer she anticipated, she said, “You never did tell me what it is you’re doing together.”

His smile made her stomach churn. He let the question hang in the air a heartbeat, then said, “We’re conducting research together.”

Research. He had mentioned that earlier. She held his gaze, tried to keep her expression neutral, wondered if he would elaborate or if he’d force her to ask question after question—

“We’re researching magical healing techniques, its effects and applications. Ways that a healer can turn that power on themself, heal their own burns or bruises or broken bones.” The image flashed in Elyse’s mind, the photo of Felicia’s arm snapped like a twig. “It’s such a complex field, and some avenues have been woefully underexplored. But Felicia’s been capable of some remarkable things when I push her.” He glanced back at Felicia then, almost affectionate. “She’s been an invaluable asset.”

Elyse grit her teeth and refused to dwell on the implications. Behind Volkan, Felicia sat still, staring at nothing in particular, blood dripping from her lip to the ground. She’s not an asset, Elyse thought, she’s a person. But what she said was, “Don’t try to dress this up as some legitimate research venture. It’s kidnapping and torture.”

He actually laughed at that, and it pissed her off. “Don’t be so self-righteous, Elyse,” he said. “We are making important discoveries here.” We, we, as if Felicia were a willing participant in this. “And when the time comes, I have ways of turning my findings legitimate.”

Gabriel Davids, from the university. How many other contacts at the university did he have? How many avenues of influence across the city? And how the fuck could she possibly negotiate to get Felicia back, when he had everything and there was nothing she could offer him, and—

“I can tell you’re really upset about all this.” His cloyingly faux-sympathetic tone was almost enough to push her over the edge, but she bit her tongue and forced herself to lock eyes with him. “You have to understand, I have my own obligations and interests to think of. But I’m not entirely unreasonable.” He paused to consider, almost theatrical. “She’s a good enough healer, but she’s not irreplaceable. If you find me another decent healer who can take whatever I do to them, I’d be happy to make a switch.”

Elyse’s mind was blank, wrapping around what he was saying. “Find another—”

“You live near the university.” It wasn’t a question. “It wouldn’t be too hard to find another healer to take her place.”

And for a bright, horrible moment, Elyse considered it. People came from all over the world to work and study in Trisgate. People starting over in the big city, no friends, no family. It would be easy enough to find someone that nobody would miss. Just one stranger’s life, and then she’d have Felicia back and this nightmare would be over.

And they’d be condemning another to torture. And they’d never be able to untangle themselves from Volkan’s evil and the part they’d played in it.

“No,” Elyse said, forcing the thoughts from her head. “You’re insane. We’re not bringing anyone else into this.”

Volkan shrugged. “This is the best offer I can make you. Take it or leave it.”

“We’re not bartering lives with you.” As she spoke, she looked not at Volkan but at Felicia, not knowing what she wanted to see—forgiveness? Understanding? But Felicia’s eyes were empty and her mind was a thousand miles away. Even anger would’ve been better. It was as if Felicia wasn’t even there.

“Then there’s no point in continuing this conversation.” The finality in Volkan’s tone froze her heart.

“Wait—”

“I made you an offer, and you aren’t interested.” He was moving closer to the mirror, fuck, he was going to end it all— “And remember, you’re going to stop interfering with my work. That’s not negotiable.”

“Volkan, wait—” Her mind was racing, but there was nothing she could say, and he was going to end the conversation, and Felicia sat still as a statue behind him. “Felicia—”

At the sound of her name, Felicia looked up, and locked eyes with Elyse with a burning intensity.

And then she was gone and Elyse was staring into her own eyes in the mirror.

“Fuck,” she breathed, and she started to sob.

She was alone in her room, the walls closing in on her, storm still raging outside, and her mirror was just a mirror, and Felicia was gone, and now they were even worse off than when they’d started—

No. Felicia had given her information, and paid dearly for it. Elyse couldn’t let that go to waste.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped the tears from her face, and took one last look at her reddened eyes in the mirror.

The others were waiting for her. She needed to be a leader and tell them what she had learned.

***

The tension in the living room was a physical thing, choking Elyse as she stepped into the room and everyone’s gaze immediately turned on her. Marcus sat in an armchair, fingers drumming the worn armrest; Darya paced, more restless than she’d ever been; Kailo was on the couch, still, his energy drawn inward. The moment balanced on a knife’s edge; she had made a choice, and they knew nothing, and they were waiting, and she realized she had no idea what to say.

Marcus opened his mouth to ask something and, suddenly desperate to control the situation, Elyse blurted out, “She’s alive.”

Something of a collective breath of relief settled over the room, taking the edge off the tension. Elyse sank onto the couch next to Kailo, her mind sifting through everything of the conversation, trying to untangle a thread she could lead them with. She’s alive. He’ll kill her if we move against him. Gabriel Davids, from the university. Volkan’s fist cracking against Felicia’s jaw.

Start at the beginning. “They’re up north,” she said.

“Did he tell you that?” Marcus leaned forward in his chair, heightened, suspicious. “Why should we believe anything he says?”

Elyse looked him in the eye. “She said that.”

“How was she?” Kailo’s voice was small; as she turned to him, he flushed, as if he regretted the question but couldn’t stop himself.

Felicia curled on the ground, Volkan delivering a final harsh kick to her ribs. The urge to reassure Kailo competed with the need to tell the truth, and Elyse didn’t have a way to answer that question without bursting into tears.

“He’s working with Gabriel Davids,” she said instead. “He’s from the university. One of the most well-respected healers in the city.” She’d heard the name before, in passing; his connection to Volkan caught her completely off-guard.

“He wasn’t on our radar at all.” Darya leaned over the back of an unoccupied chair, brow furrowed. “If we—”

“We can’t.” Elyse was terrified to let Darya even finish that thought, terrified of what would happen to Felicia, what was happening to her at this very moment. “This whole call—it was a warning. We were getting too close to—to something, I don’t know, and if we keep going, he’ll kill her.”

The finality of the words hung heavy in the stunned silence. Elyse’s heart was pounding so hard, she was sure they could all hear it.

Marcus finally spoke. “We were so close…if we could just—”

“We can’t. It doesn’t matter how close we get, he has everything.” He has Felicia. “He knows all of us somehow, he said your names—”

And then she caught herself, because no, he didn’t have everything.

Kailo picked up on her hesitation. “But?”

“He doesn’t know about Anna.”

It had been weeks since Anna had slipped away to work her way into Becker’s crew, to follow his tenuous connection to Volkan and find a way to get Felicia out of there. It was the closest thing they had to a lead, and if Volkan hadn’t mentioned her name, if he didn’t know who she was and her cover was still secure…

“I haven’t heard from her in a bit, but—that means she’s close. It has to,” Elyse continued, half-trying to convince herself. “She’s finding a way in, and they don’t know her, and…”

Marcus flared up at that. “So we’re just gonna sit around and wait for Anna to figure something out,” he snapped. “And meanwhile, Felicia’s with that creep, getting beaten or—”

“Marcus.” Darya’s voice was sharp, laced with anger covering fear, and her cheeks were damp with tears.

She’s the only one besides me who saw the photos, Elyse realized. The only other one who had a real idea of what condition Felicia was in at that moment. She wanted to grab Darya’s hand in comfort, but instead she turned back to Marcus. “Do you have a better idea?”

He was silent at that, but the space yawned with what she wasn’t telling them: the offer she hadn’t accepted, the one chance they had and she’d refused it. It must’ve been written plain across her face; she couldn’t believe no one was pushing her on it. Felicia wasn’t coming home, and it was because of the choice Elyse had made, and she was paralyzed with it.

“So we know she’s alive, and we have some information about where she is…” Kailo began, gently, and Elyse could’ve hugged him for how easily he broke the tension. “Can you get that information to Anna?”

“I don’t have a way to contact her,” she said. “I’ve just been waiting for her to call when she’s able. But she’s getting in deeper with them; she hasn’t been able to call as much lately.” Her hands trembled in her lap; she clasped them to still them. “But it’s something.”

Their eyes were all on her: Kailo, next to her on the couch; Darya, moving restlessly from the window to the couch and back again; Marcus, still and searching. It was something, she kept saying, but they needed more. She stood, trying to set herself as solid and determined, knowing she was scared and useless.

“We can’t make a move yet,” she continued. “But we have more information. We can look at maps, cross-reference with what she—” Her voice wavered, and she fought to keep it still. “What she told us. It has to mean something.”

Her breath was coming shorter and shorter, and she couldn’t hide the trembling in her hands no matter how hard she clasped. The emotions were too much, too close to spilling over. It’s done, she told herself. There isn’t anything else we can do right now. And if she spent another minute in that room with everyone watching her and waiting, she would break.

She left the conversation and made her way to the kitchen. The storm had finally blown over, and feeble sunlight broke through the lingering clouds to bathe the countertops in a warm glow. She grabbed a mug from the shelf and poured herself some stale coffee; she wasn’t going to sleep that night either way, she might as well self-sabotage.

It was 1:40. The conversation with Volkan and the follow-up with everyone else had barely taken more than a half hour. The entire rest of the day stretched before her, an endless expanse for her to fill with nothing but her thoughts, until she crawled into her empty bed and didn’t sleep and turned all night with the same thoughts in a spiraling cycle that only captured a fragment of whatever Felicia was facing.

She should’ve taken Volkan’s deal. She stood up there with her false confidence, acting like she was some sort of leader, but she’d dropped the only chance they had. What the fuck was wrong with her, she should’ve at least pretended to go along with it, buy them some time, make an opening for Volkan to slip up—

Marcus entered the kitchen; perhaps he was trying to be quiet, but his presence was too loud. Elyse extricated herself from the slow spiral of her thoughts, poured him a mug of coffee and handed it to him without a word. He took it and cupped it in his hands, resting his elbows on the island counter. In the slanting sunlight, his skin took on a warm glow. He breathed deeply, his eyes half-shut, and finally: “You didn’t actually tell us how she was.”

All at once, Elyse was exhausted. “How do you think she was?”

“It’s just—you saw her.” His eyes were open now, and locked on her across the island. “All this time, I’ve been terrified she was dead.” His voice caught on the word, but he stumbled on. “I couldn’t even imagine—what did it look like?”

The question caught her off-guard. “What?”

“His house—the room. Wherever he’s keeping her.” He leaned forward across the island, and it hit her: he was grasping for details, needing more than what she’d given them. Terrified of the unknown.

But she was empty, and had nothing left to give. “I don’t know, Marcus. It was an office. A nice chair and some bookshelves.” And gleaming hardwood floors, when Felicia had sprawled at Volkan’s feet.

“That’s it? An office?”

“What do you want from me, Marcus?”

His face told her he wanted exactly what she wanted: Felicia home, safe. He set the mug down and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I just—there needs to be more.”

Her blood ran cold. There was more, a deal she should’ve taken, a slim but extant chance to bring Felicia home. “More what?”

“More…something. This is the closest we’ve gotten since she—” He cut himself off, looked down at his clenched hands, then continued. “It didn’t get us shit. I thought you’d have something…real for us.”

Her blood turned from ice to fire at that, his blame and her own guilt kindling into slowly-growing anger. “Felicia gave us something,” she reminded him. “She told us where they are, gave us names, and Anna—”

“Fuck that,” he snapped. “Maybe you’re fine with waiting around for Anna to solve things, but I’m not. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who actually gives a shit about Felicia.”

It was a slap in the face. She wanted to slap him in turn, but her hands had never been her weapon.

“Remind me, Marcus,” she said slowly, coldly, “how did she end up with Volkan in the first place?”

He looked as if she had slapped him. Hypocrite. “How can you even—”

“I’m telling you that if we make one wrong move, he’s going to kill her.” Marcus would’ve taken the deal in a heartbeat. The thought hit her, and she brushed it aside like cobwebs. “So we can’t—”

“We can’t, do you ever—”

“Let me talk, Marcus. Just because you hate yourself for leaving Felicia to die—” It was cruel and she couldn’t care; she barreled on. “—it doesn’t mean I’ll let you risk her life again now. He said he’d—” Kill her and send her back to you in pieces. “He—” Felicia crumpling as his fist smashed across her face, curling on the ground, blood dripping from her nose—

She couldn’t breathe. What was happening to Felicia, right now, while they stood here and argued about it? How many more ways could he hurt her? She rubbed furiously at her eyes to scrub away the images; her fists came away wet with tears.

She couldn’t look at Marcus, but she felt his eyes on her. “Elyse…”

“When Felicia gave me that information,” she began, voice shaking, “he beat her so badly she could barely move.” She stared at the cooling mug of coffee in her hands, the dusk of the setting sun fading from the countertop. “He beat her, and it just kept going, and I couldn’t do a thing, and I just had to stand there and watch it—” She swallowed back the tears and looked at Marcus’s face then. The anger and frustration were still simmering beneath the surface, but something more tender was beginning to break through.

She took a breath. “I don’t know what we can do.”

It was painful to admit to her helplessness; it was worse to know that there was something she could do, and she had refused it. There were no good choices, and she’d still made the wrong one.

Marcus, at last, was silent, his face pale as a ghost. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and she couldn’t imagine how anything he said could help—and then he blew out a weary exhale, shifting to lean against the counter and look out the window, the lingering autumn twilight smoothing the shadows of his face. The mug of coffee was cold in her hands.

***

People got into the dark underworld of Trisgate one of two ways: either they had the skills and inclination to take everything they wanted, or they got in too deep and owed someone higher up more than they could ever give. Anna couldn't afford to become the second one if she were to have any hope of finding Felicia.

Insinuating herself with Becker’s gang had been easy enough; she lingered, she let them get used to her face, and when the chance arose for her to be useful, she took it. It wasn’t long before she was running jobs with them, working her way deeper into the organization. The weeks passed, and she gained their trust and pretended that the information she passed along for them wouldn’t be used to hurt anyone, that the weapons and drugs she smuggled wouldn’t be used to kidnap and torture and kill people just like Felicia.

Somewhere among all the subterfuge, she’d made enough of a positive impression on Becker to get brought along with his inner circle to that night’s gathering: a cocktail party, an intimate gathering hosted by some magnate with his fingers in all the city’s magical materials trade, a rumored business contact of Volkan’s. Another in for Anna, a chance to listen and learn.

She mingled that night, a glass of wine dangling from her fingers, drink untouched but a prop in the part she was playing. Her ears were attuned for any mention of Volkan’s name, but the conversations around her layered and tangled, names and companies and places, so many facets to this dark underworld that were impossible for her to tease apart.

The host. Fuck, what was his name? Emmett, Evanson? If she could meet him—or if she could linger in his vicinity while others chatted him up—he was a tenuous connection to Volkan, but it could be enough. She scanned the room, but he’d introduced himself and welcomed everyone at the start of the party, and she hadn’t seen him since. Her gaze trailed past the buffet, the dance floor, and there: the courtyard doors were open, but few guests had ventured out after the storm that tore through earlier that day. Maybe Elmer or whatever his name was had stepped out for some air—or for a private conversation.

Her short heels clicked on the stone steps as she made her way outside, breathing in the sweet scent of rain. The earlier storm had given way to an unseasonable warmth, tree branches shaking off water droplets with each shift in the breeze. The courtyard was expansive; winding paths snaked through neatly trimmed hedges, trees headed towards winter dormancy, hidden nooks with stone benches invited clandestine conversations.

Anna made her way among the shrubbery, hoping she’d find the night’s host, but with each step carrying her further from the party, she realized how much she needed the air and the space and the stillness. Even alone, she couldn’t fully let her guard down—she could run into someone at any time—but it was a step removed from the constant performance that her life had become those past months, the agonizing balancing act of ingratiating herself with cruelty without doing more than she could ever take back.

The courtyard was still and quiet in the way of dusk following a storm. A cool breeze brushed the trees, a fountain gurgled, and the murmur of the party sounded a thousand miles away. She was alone, and as much as she craved it, it wasn’t where she needed to be. She took a few breaths and braced herself to put the mask fully back on, and then she heard distinct rustling from the bushes.

She acted on instinct, tracking the darker shadow among the shadows, grabbing a body and forcing it against the stone wall surrounding the courtyard. A knife flashed in the dark, and she grabbed the wrist and pinned it against the wall and the knife fell, and she was finally able to take a look at who she was holding.

The man was young—more of a boy, really, likely not yet out of his teens. Disarmed, he looked harmless, but for the hot anger simmering in his eyes like coals.

“Who are you?” she hissed, pressing him into the wall.

“Let me go,” he growled, jerking against her with sudden force.

She held firm. “Who are you?” She threw a quick glance behind her, but there was still no one else around. She knew that from inside the light of the party, the courtyard was dark and impenetrable, but the murmur of the fountain would mask any approaching footsteps, and if someone found them—the boy shoved against her again and she almost buckled, but planted her feet and held him in place.

“If you’re nobody, and they find you,” she continued, forcing herself to look into his eyes, “they’re going to kill you.”

It would be nothing to incapacitate him, skinny scrap of a kid that he was, and if she brought him to the others and announced she’d found him skulking around the garden, she’d rise even higher. He could be a gift for Volkan. She could climb to Felicia’s rescue over this boy’s dead body.

“I’m not afraid of you.” The waver in his voice betrayed him. His defiance was a cheap bravado that couldn’t fully cover the scared kid he was underneath.

“I’m serious.” She threw another glance over her shoulders; no one was there. “I don’t know who you are or who you came here to kill, but if you go in there, you will die. And then you’ll never get the revenge or whatever it is you’re after.”

Her words got through to him, and he softened. “Help me,” he whispered.

“I am.”

“No, I mean, help me fight them. We could take them down together—”

“No. It doesn’t work like that. You aren’t going to sneak in there and bring down the systematic corruption in this city with your shitty butter knife.” Hadn’t they all thought that, just a few weeks ago? This boy may as well have been Marcus, brash and angry and ready to solve the world’s problems. He may as well have been Felicia, who’d tried and was being repaid tenfold.

Anna pulled back a bit to look the boy in the eye, looking for resignation, maybe, surrender. She saw only the same fire smoldering. “You lost tonight,” she said. “Don’t be stupid. Go home.”

She released him and stepped back, watching. The boy kept his eyes locked on her as he crouched down, fumbled in the dirt for the knife he’d dropped. Found it, slipped it back in its sheath. Then he backed along the wall, away from the party, eyes still on her, until he turned and ran.

She watched him until she could no longer make out his shape in the darkness. Her skin prickled, and she spun around, sure that someone was watching her. The courtyard was still empty. In the distance, the party glowed and murmured. Anna took a breath, ran her hands through her curls, and steeled herself to play her part.

#whump #out unseen #my writing #my oc: felicia #my oc: volkan #my oc: elyse #my oc: marcus #my oc: darya #my oc: kailo #my oc: annaliese #ou content #whole gang's here!!

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s0ulsice · 2 months ago

Text

V I R A G O

CHAPTER 6:

She was a bird, I was an arrow

✮⋆»»———➤⋆.˚꩜ ˙⋆ ☀︎ ✮⋆»»———➤⋆.˚꩜ ˙⋆ ☀︎

Neteyam x fem na’vi!omaticaya!reader

Characters:

Ka’lik- (like you would pronounce “Malik”) Y/n’s father/deceased

Zensira-deceased, Y/n’s mother, spider's adoptive mother

Kailo-(Y/n’s ikran. Your ikran is a male)

WARNINGS: panic attack, blood, heights, sexual assault???(Kyuna being touchy) attempts of undressing someone? (Again, Kyuna.)

☾✮⋆»»———➤⋆.˚꩜ ˙⋆ ☀︎ ☾✮⋆»»———➤

Neteyam POV:

When I was 15 I fell in love.

I fell in love with a girl made of moonlight and stars stitched together by sirenic hymns of pulsed passion.

She left loose curls in her braids and had bruised knees from climbing. She has auriferous, harvest moon eyes that glow viridescent when the night untangles itself from its resting place, aligned imperfectly with her stellified sunset-tinted soul.

I started by bringing her little things.

Flowers. Crystals. Herbs for various uses to share with her family. She danced at clan ceremonies, immune to the curse of incoordination. Her dark hair swung behind her, braids woven out of pieces of the night. She was a wild child. Running through rivers and daring to drive herself through the dullness of the dirt.

I knew that she never met her grandmother, but she wore the river pearl necklace that once belonged to her.

I knew that she loved swimming, and never really talked about how good she was at it.

I knew that she kept the dried petals from the little dolls her mother would make her out of flowers as a child and hung them above her hammock in her family's tent.

I knew that she made her first kill with a bow and arrow when she was 4. And that the tip of that very arrowhead was tied on her song chord to mark the occasion.

I knew that she was worried. Worried about me, about the human boy she called her brother, about her home, and her people, her parents who were still healing from the first war.

But I loved what I didn’t understand. That was my first mistake.

Because my whole life has been about being the older brother. When she gave me the gift of feeling like a child again, I suppose I thought I could leave her like one.

And I know that sounds stupid. I know I sound stupid.

It wasn’t immaturity I craved. It was that lightness. The kind that the sun could never provide.

That stupid, stupid boy. If I could grab him and shake him by his shoulders until his brain repositioned itself into the right place, I would.

There was an addicting absurdity to it all.

Running through the forest with her after dark, whispering her name in the night while my hands traced her spine, leaving lazy, open kisses on her ribcage and spinning her around with her legs caught around my waist. Dragging my fingers along her pulse point. Feeling her breath flicker in the firelight of the stars. I never dared to do anything beyond kissing her and holding her. So perhaps that boy isn’t as stupid as I thought.

I slept with her. Not like that, though. Actually sleeping. The kind where your clothes remained on. The first time it happened was when I stumbled to find her by the creek, where she was weaving a basket for her mother. I was so exhausted from training i collapsed my head into her lap while she stroked my back.

Sometimes I kissed her neck, the expanse of her throat where I swore I saw heaven hollowed within. I ran my hands over the sweet homage of her thighs.

There was a freedom with her I felt with no one else. Then the world felt too big, my heart created corners that only fit her shape. When the air became knotted and my breath spilled from my lungs in sporadic bouts of blemished air, she blessed me with a barrier of bliss. I thought I was so deserving of that decompression. I was an idiot to think it wasn’t a privilege.

Some nights we’d sit on the thickened tree branches of the pandora oak outside the old village.

She’d lean her head on my shoulder and i’d tell her the English names of the constellations my father taught me.

“What’s that one?”

She whispered, pointing with the tip of her finger and tracing the shape of the asterism, eywa knows I couldn’t look away from the stars in her eyes, an opalescence embedded like a sea mirroring the night’s contents, and suddenly I saw two skies.

“Its called the archer.” I hummed, gently guiding her wrist to place her hand atop the shaft of the bow caught in the cosmos.

“See? There’s her bow, and her arrow, and her body.”

She tilted her head, attempting to see the shape. Her eyes light up when she finds it.

I smile, a warmth spreads within my chest as my enamourment echoes through the dusk.

“My father says some people on earth started calling it a ‘virago’.”

She nods in acknowledgment, glancing between me and the stars.

Those were the nights I hope she can remember. Those are the nights I pray i never forget.

But sometimes the shadows loom instead of live. The world around me started breaking down into fragments that figmented themselves drunk on delirium. Because having my mother’s eyes doesn’t mean i’m free of my father’s gaze.

I was afraid of control. My second mistake was becoming accustomed to it.

But my chance with that fiery girl is gone. I’ll bury it. So I don’t have to look at it. So no one has to look at it. Because she deserves so much better than to chase fireflies for the rest of her life.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the night the sky turned red.

My father and mother had left for date night. I was home with Lo’ak, Kiri, and Y/n who as babysitting Tuk while her parents went to gather herbs.

We didn’t speak to one another. It was too awkward. I clung to silence like it was a sustenance for my survival.

Our parents had been gone for a few hours when we saw it.

A new star surfaced in the sky, tearing through the dark viciously. Sparing nothing in its path of annihilation.

An unfamiliar sort of fear fell upon Norm and Max’s face as they exited their shack at the sound of commotion. Their smiles faded so fast they might as well have never been there in the first place.

Kiri shrunk away slowly to an unknown place of hiding. As if trying to shield herself from the threatening presence of this bolide.

lo’ak dropped the bracelet he was making, the beads landing on the ground with scattered sounds of clanking and chaos.

Tuk ran to y/n, a panicked descry leaving her as she took refuge in her arms. Y/n held Tuk protectively. Her expression was notated by one of horror.

Me? I froze. The world stopped spinning. The moon refused to shine. The earth had withered away under my feet.

I was dazed as I followed my siblings into our families tent, I remember Norm’s words as he ushered us inside, trying to mask his panic.

“Kids, get inside- c’mon quickly.

Tuk, let’s play a game. Okay? Tuck your knees to your chest and don’t move until I come back.”

The world was falling apart.

And I couldn’t even see my last glimpse of it beyond the cloth quarters of the home I grew up in. That’s how you trap yourself. You convince yourself your cage is just an illusion.

When my parents returned home later, Y/n sprinted to them, asking frantically if they had seen her parents return.

“They haven’t yet returned?”

When my mother spoke those words, the air tensed.

I watched helplessly as she ran to her ikran, mounting it with no time to waste.

I reached for her arm, stammering out pleas for her to stay. Stay close to the stars that sent the shadows of the endless dusk desolating any shred of hope. Without them i’d surely loose her in the darkness. Stay in the light, please. Stay where I can see you. Where I know you are safe. Where I know they can’t take another. Stay where every moment was inscribed to instinct. Where every moment of my life is a piece of a plan. A plot. Every word is scripted. And even if you were never a part of it I can still keep your eyes in my life.

Stay with me. Please. I don’t know what’s out there and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.

She hissed at me with tears in her eyes, shaky hands pushing me away as she mounted Kailo with irascible mannerisms.

Behind it all was a little girl who just wanted to find her mom and dad.

I envy her. I envy her ability to not cower from the darkness.

To stand where others couldn't see.

My father chased after Y/n. Determined to bring her and her parents back in one piece. Promising my mother she wouldn’t loose anyone else she was close too.

But sometimes we can’t keep our promises.

I waited with my mother and my siblings.

I watched my mother pray. Clutching my grandmother’s hand close to her chest. Murmuring invocations to the wind. My mother couldn’t stall away the anxious inquisitiveness of Tuk, complying with her to shut herself away from the sharp helix-scarred sky, victim to fire and ruin.

“Wait inside, Tuk.”

That’s all anyone would tell her.

Lo’ak sat coiled in the corner. Staring infront of him as if the air was dissolving into fragments filmed in glass, shattering into pieces.

He was silent. Still. But he was like my father in that way. A master of disassociation. When you stayed so rooted in solitude the world around you ceased its spinning.

Kiri prayed in my grandmother’s tent. Isolating herself.

What more can you do when what you thought were stories of the past resurrect from devastation?

History was cruel. Our biggest mistake was thinking the future would forget.

Would it forgive? Would it tread this demolition generously? Would it spare my mother from losing a sister for teh second time? Would it let my father laugh just a bit longer? Let him remain unpunished. Maybe in a world where the heart on his sleeve isn’t in the shape of a shackle. Where the shadows of his past sins remain silent. When ‘sir’ wasn’t a synonym for ‘dad’.

Please. Let my littlest sister play in the forest after dark again. Chasing winged insects and dancing to heartbeats. Let her feel the solace of safety and the freedom of frolicking in the flower fields without fear of the sky demons. Don’t make her grow up knowing war. Give her a world where I don't have to explain that Dad still loves Lo’ak and me even after yelling at us.

Don’t take my little brother's light away. Don’t shy him away from me. let me see the spark flicker in his eyes when he would look up at me. Bring back the days of chasing him around and having our heights measured next to each other. Childhood memories of keeping him occupied with stories while he squirmed on my mother's lap, getting his hair rebraided. Back when I was his sibling. Not his shadow. Now I can’t find it when my existence is the pinnacle of excellence that’s dangled over his head. To fall as the burning star while he damns me in the daylight of the sun. Days when my father's words to Lo’ak were filled with tender devotion, and not deadlines and demands and disappointment. Look at him. Please. Don’t turn your attention into a privilege.

And Kiri. Oh kiri. Please. Don’t twist her story. Don’t write my sister’s mother into the enemy. Don’t make the sleeping body she yearns to touch beyond her hand pressed to cold glass awake in darkness only to say goodbye. The only place solace is found for Kiri, the only place she can hear her voice within the deep forest. Don’t resurrect Grace’s memory and taint it.

Please don’t hurt the girl I’m in love with. Please don’t banish the stars in her sky to the depths of the hollowed and hardened corridors of her heart. What must I do to protect her? Tell me, and tell me now. I’m running out of time. Do i look her in her eyes and tell her that every breath i take is for her? Every half-note of my heartbeat is a syllable in her name. I know I failed her. I know. And im sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

I paced around the tent, watching Tuk play with her toys in the corner, waiting for any sign of return.

When the shadow and the screech of my father’s ikran, the rising sun rushing currents of a blinding white light leaking through the overlay of the trees, crashed into the sounds shaping themselves into shards, slicing through the air.

My father had his arm thrown over y/n’s shoulder, locking her in place against his chest, she crouched on the front of his ikran, shaking and thrashing.

His other hand gripped his ikran saddle like a vice, struggling to keep both him and Y/n upright in flight.

The moment the touch down to the village y/n all but collapses to the ground, slipping out of my fathers grasp.

He curses, jumping off and scrambling to hold her. A low wail leaves y/n as she claws and scratches at her own skin, clutching what looks like the remnants of a songchord in her hand.

No sign of her parents. That only meant the worst.

It hits me like a blow to my chest, creeping up my spine like vines of plants from hell and tying me down to the earth, roots caging me in, the world around me clawing to come inside.

Everything around me blurs. The ground under me shifts with the wind. The patterns reverse and the sound waves reshape themselves behind shadows.

Light is refracted, captured in a dome of reflections. My mother is the first to sprint towards the pair. Her steps slowly traipsed down as she registered the absence of Zensira and Kai’lik.

The sight of Y/n clutching a bloodied song chord shattered any ounce of hope she had.

My mother sobbed into her palm, rushing towards Y/n to grasp at her shoulders, desperately trying to keep her close, as if the sky demons would rip her straight out of her arms.

My grandmother jogs over, trying to cage her daughter in her arms and gradually pull her away, giving Y/n the much-needed space.

My father has tears in his eyes.

He doesn’t dare let them fall. Not in front of his clan. His children.

My father is a master of disassociation. Confrontation was never a confidant of my fathers. Lock him in a room with him and his own grief and watch him fall apart.

He's angry. Angry at the world. Angry at himself. Angry at this piece of his past he prayed he’d never see again.

Lo’ak drops frantically, taking a place behind y/n and my father, trying to speak to her in hushed tones that are washed out by her cries. Lo’ak isn’t good with these kinds of things. But he cares for her. He struggles with the placement of his hands momentarily, settling to rub her back soothingly.

Tuk pushes past the crowd forming in the distance, and scampering behind me, gently placing her palm on my leg and tugging on my fingertips.

“What's wrong? Whys’ everyone crying?”

I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I can’t even look at her. I’m still. I’m frozen. I’m useless.

She winces at the sound of more wailing, pushing herself to stand in front of my father.

I know I should speak. Tell Tuk to go back inside. Away from the screaming and the crying. That’s what older siblings do. I feel her small fingers slip away from mine and suddenly my skin feels as if it's unraveling.

I don’t think yesterday existed.

Because just yesterday I saw Y/n and her parents, with Spider and with the clan. Just yesterday the sky was blue. Today it dawns a sickening shade of orange. The sky dissevered and swallowed it whole before it could even breathe.

How can it change so fast? Did it slip away from me? Maybe I didn’t hold on to it tight enough. Please, my love. I’m sorry. Can’t you see I’m sorry? Please hold onto me again and I swear I'll never let you go again.

I look at Y/n again, still trying to pry herself out of my father’s grasp. One hand clutches her forearm and digs and scratches her fingers into the flesh so manically it draws blood. Her other hand clawing at the dirt. She starts to hyperventilate as my father panics.

“Breathe Y/n. You have to breathe. Please.” My father’s voice is hoarse and desperate. The world is spinning to fast for him meanwhile mine ceases to spin at all.

Or maybe that’s incorrect. My world was right infront of me. Crying and breathing as if her lungs denied her existence.

Tuk’s whimpering catches his attention, his ears pin down as he grapples with the idea of his youngest baring witness to such tragedy.

Then those frantic golden eyes that mirror my own focus on me.

“Neteyam! Take your sister inside. Now! go! “

I can’t. I’m stuck. Why am i stuck? Iv’e always been the first to act. The first to speak, to advocate, to defend.

What will happen to my clan? To my family? Can we win again? Will we win again? Are we as strong as we were during the first war?

“Neteyam! Get Tuk and move!”

My fathers voice is drowned by the swirling thoughts in my head.

My father places Y’n beside Lo’ak, who immediately wraps an arm around her to keep her upright.

“Dad!”

Loa’k calls after him as he files towards me. His voice cracks.

He scoops tuk up with one arm, using his other to grab my arm, dragging us both into the tent, pushing us inside with all the gentleness he could manage.

“Stay with your sisters and your mother. Please.”

He breathes before leaving, returning to Y/n.

My mother is sobbing in the corner, Kiri at her side with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Grandmother tries to calm them both.

“Eywa why? Why has the past come back to us?”

She curls herself into a fetal position as she cries out as if she's in physical pain.

Tuk starts to cry.

The earth is weeping and my family is shattered. The love of my life is left in a starless night sky.

Can the sun shine in the dusk?

✮⋆»»———➤⋆.˚꩜ ˙⋆ ☀︎ ☾✮⋆»»———➤⋆.˚꩜ ˙⋆ ☀︎ ☾✮⋆»»———➤

“If you can’t smell the fletching you aren’t doing it right.”

Y/n smacks my chest for the 8th time that hour. My lessons with her had finally begun, per my father’s orders.

And after thinking about it, i’m grateful my father chose me for this position. so what if I enjoy spending time with her? And I can’t say I despise hearing her make demands and orders and instructions.

Is that weird? Am I weird for that?

She sighed in frustration, staring at me like the hopeless case i was.

“Really? you have these freakishly big arms and no posture.”

I frown, patting my bicep pitifully.

“They’re called muscles.”

“Then use them. Straighten up.”

She elbows me in the ribs.

I take a breath, tracing her slightly faded form with my peripheral vision as I prepare to be denied of her essence in my line of sight, even for just a moment as she steps behind me.

I correct my stance, shooting the arrow as it flies through the woven targets shes created and tied to the tree.

She examines my shot, running her fingers over the painted circle and where my arrow has skewered itself embed. It was perfect. Right at the center.

“Better.”

She affirms, yanking it out of the target and tossing it to my feet.

“We have to practice angles. Its clear you can shoot a bow, quite well at that. But it’s different when you’re transitioning into targets that are at sky-level with you.”

Today, she trains me to become an archer like her and my mother, to learn the skills to eventually shoot down sky demon ships.

I reach behind me to let my bow hang on my back, the string brushing my torso.

“Will the transition take long?”

She shurgs.

“It depends. It’s different from using a bow on foot or on a direhorse, even on ikran from low distances. It’s not like sturmbeast hunting. The rush, the wind, the air, it all screams at you while you shoot from the sky. The last thing you want is to be fumbling around for an arrow while a gunned ship chases you.”

She speaks absentmindedly as she gathers the targets from the tree, untying the ropeshes used to secure them.

I smile to myself, watching the way her hands work around the intricate knots she’s created.

“I’m a fast learner. I’m sure I’ll catch on.”

She scoffs, looking over her shoulder.

“Don’t shower me with proclamations, I’m confident in your archery skills. It's the change of pace that’ll become an impediment.”

I think sometimes Y/n assumes I harbor this overabundance of cockiness. I don’t. I never have. But i guess that’s what happens when you’re is away from someone for a long time. You forget.

Her gaze explores the thickened grass woven into a makeshift target as she starts to pile them into the big pouch she brought them in. The air around us spreads and forms an exterior of foreign feelings. I don’t reject the atmosphere it provides.

Treading lightly, I slowly take a step towards her.

“You are a good teacher.”

I say matter-of-factly. I’m stalling. I don’t want my time with her to end.

She scoffs, refusing to spare me a glance.

“I’m a terrible teacher, I’m a good shot and I order other warriors around when your father wants me to. People see that and assume my teaching skills are just as good.”

I shrug, leaning against a tree, reaching out to take the sack off her hands for a moment. She gave me it reluctantly. She takes a seat on the tree stump, tossing her head back before looking back at me, waving her hand in a downward motion.

“Sit for a moment. It’s important to rest your muscles after training. There’s nothing worse than straining your shooting arm.”

I huff out a quiet laugh. I sink against the tree across from her. “Well if you insist.”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t. But the cramps you’ll avoid in your biceps arms definitely do.”

I watch as her fingers trace the curvature of the arrowhead, the sun sliced over the ridges in the small objects surface, rounding over the curves and patterns in the stone.

“How would you feel about heading back without me?”

She asks; not even glancing at me as she opens her water flask, taking a few sips out of it and cursing quietky when she tilts the pouch too far back and some water spills down her chin to her neck, the unwelcomed sudden sensation making her shudder.

She hands me the flask, offering some water but all i can do is gawk at her words.

“To high camp? No. We should stay together.”

I shake my head, gently declining her offer of water and muttering a thank you.

It’s her turn to gawk now. Staring at me as if i have three tails.

“I have my bow.”

She gestures to the weapon next to her, the curved wood carved with patterns and bright beads and feathers adorining it.

“I’ll be fine on my own.”

I know she hates beinhg chaperoned or supervised. So i allow the sounds of the forest to symphonize while i devise something to respond with. The sewn sky is torn at the seams as clouds creep by. Something with feathers moves in the distant canopy.

“Why? Don’t you want to return with me?”

It’s not you. I just don’t want to go home yet.”

“Than who is it?”

She’s quiet for a moment, fidgeting with her songchord to busy her hands.

“Spider.”

That was honestly the last thing I expceted to hear.

By the time Spider could walk-

Well, really, i doubt the guy ever went through a ‘first steps’ phase. He probably just started running.

By the time he could preform some kind of motion with his legs that incorporated standing up and getting him from one place to another, Y/n’s parents had pretty much accepted him as their child.

That was his ticket to having the full na’vi child experience. He had a songchord, a bow, was taught the history of the clan through stories and songs. He loved them, and mourned them when their time came. Y/n and him have always been close, and since the past tragedy, it’s not hard to say that they’ve fought to keep eachother in their lives. Especially when my parents ushered y/n to live with our family, and leaving spider with norm and max. Because whether others believe spider belongs with our people or not, she’s never known a world where he’s not there. It’s a scale that shouldn’t be tipped. One will surely loose balance without the other.

I blink, sitting up as my head cocks to the side.

“Spider? Why? What did he do?”

IS it wrong for me to assume spider is the one at fault for whatever quarrel is proceeding?

No. At least i don’t think so. I actually think it’s pretty fair.

She groans, running her palms down her face, the skin under her eyes being dragged downwards under her fingertips.

“He’s just so- and then he- and he just- and he-”

She shakes her fists furiously as if shes strangling something invisible.

I wince.

“I don’t think that will improve his current situation with the air on this planet.”

“I’m ready to take the mask and shove it where it won’t see air again.”

“Woah there.”

She sighs roughly, absently throwing a small rock into a bush.

“Why doesn’t he ever think before doing stupid shit?”

“Well the shit wouldn’t be stupid if it was properly considred.”

She mumbles to herself, waving me off.

I place my hand on the stump next to me to shift myself to lean back against the tree further.

“Y/n, I know things can be rough with siblings. Trust me, i know. But-”

“Can i tell you something that will sound horrible?”

My sentence is stifled as she hinders it with her quiet, rueful words.

I fumble for my next words.

“Uh yeah. Yes. yes of course.”

I wave my palm towards her in a stupidly clumsy ‘the floor is yours’ motion.

When someone wants to vent, count on me to turn the atmosphere into one of an addiction confrontation.

But my eywa, she wants to talk to me about her problems. ME! Not lo’ak, but me! Does that mean she trusts me?

She looks down, the light spills down through the overbush of the trees, casting a hazy halo upon her figure, golden-crested shadows flirt with her azure skin. The sunlight feels shallow today. Melancholic and hollow. The sun is silenced as it slips behind a cloud. Buried beneath a grey eclipse.

“He’s not one of us. He’s my family but he’s not the same as me, not even the same species. but he wasn’t-”

She hesitates.

“His people were never suppose to come here. To this planet. He can’t run as fast as us, fall from heights where we can and just come out unscathed, he’s not as big, as strong, as durable and adaptable as us! He’s not a na’vi! And as much as i wish I could make that his reality, I can use all the blue paint in the world and It won’t make him as tall as me. I can’t-.”

Her voice cracks at the endnotes, it’s only noticeable if you listened closely. it makes my ears pin back, itching to aid this burden.

“I can’t keep drawing circles around him and begging him to stay inside of them.”

Sometimes soulmates aren’t lovers. They’re siblings. Tied at the roots. Whether they were related by blood or not, they carried a piece of eachother. Even when the world tears them apart, that piece binds that root back to common ground. Energy is only borrowed. And one day, you’re gonna have to give it back.

If i were to loose Tuk, Lo’ak, or Kiri, the energy we’ve shared would circle back to where it started. And that root would retreat back to it’s spiral shape. That’s what life entails at the center of your circle. You would die for your siblings at the end of the day, and if they take the shapes of stars you search for them in the lengths of the sky.

Her tail coils around her ankle, poking at the bracelet that circled around the skin.

“Y/n, we can’t protect them forever.”

She curls herself into a ball, letting her weight drag her to the ground so that she lays bundled, her arms locked around her knees. Groaning and hissing loudly.

“I don’t want to protect him forever i just want him to stop trying to kill himself.”

“I don’t think that’s his intention, Y/n..”

I poke at her back, attempting to push her upwards with my palm so that she doesn’t faceplant in the dirt.

She mumbles, And if I was anything but a foot farther away I probably couldn’t hear her.

“When we were children he was so small… small-brained…And now he's still small, but bigger..but still fucking smaller than me..but he’s older…”

“..and?”

“His brain hasn’t gotten any fucking bigger. I’m going to take up alcoholism.”

“Please don’t.” I sigh,

“You can’t stop me. I’m going to drink until I forget.”

Oh how beautifully eloquent she is when shes loosing all sense of sanity...

“Y/n, he lives in the same camp as us. You’re going to wake up and remember.”

I rock my knuckles against her spine, still trying to have her body avoid the fresh dirt.

She stares into the cup of her palm. My eyes catches glimpses of the shadows kept sacred in the corridors of the covers that cover her body, the dip of her hips, the drag of her nape, the cinch of her waist, the plush of her thighs and stomach. She’s soft right now. Her muscles aren’t tensed and her stomach isn’t lined.

I’m quiet as i stare at my shins, my fingertips brushing against her other hand.

“Do you remember the other night, when we all talked about scars?”

Her tail flicks, signaling that even if she wasn’t looking at me, i knew she was listening.

“Scars are symbols. They stay with us wherever we go, reminding us of where we’v e been, how we’ve gotten there..how we survived.”

I stare up at the trees, my eyes catching the shapes casting shadows over the leaves.

“Well, I’ve been thinking that some scars don’t appear over time, sometimes we’re born with them.

Her muscles tense and she pensively clutches at her song chord. I almost take it as a sign for me to just shut up. But i can’t. The words just seem to find me.

“You..”

I stare at her. My gaze tracing lines over the patterns imprinted into her back. Somedays i think pieces of her essence are torn from the scars, blemishes, bruises, and slight discolorations that stretch across her skin. Bruises that overlap ultraviolet hues darkened into navy nights, blemishes that I swear are just painstrokes from outer space, shapes imitate cosmic rays and lunar surfaces, opulent nebulae and collisions of stars that would surely cower before her.

She is made out of pieces of the universe.

Salvageable stretches of sunlight. Crystal blue, sun-kissed acquiescence of July. Cherished adventures stained in ink delight

Refusing to wither away even when seasons change and when snow i’ve never seen turns to falling stars.

Violent sunsets, whispers, and the oceans start to sink. I consider myself equally submerged.

“You are just..so strong. You’ve always been responsible for him. You both have grown up under the same roof, you can find that common ground. You both share that circle. Those scars from your experiences..you both can’t escape that.”

Silence settles between us, my arm drapes over my propped up leg.

“It’s not wrong of you to say he doesn’t belong here. Because there’s truth to that. Our home was never meant for his kind, and maybe it never will be.

But if i know one thing, I know that he belongs with you. You’ve stood on that common ground with him through what might as well have been an earthquake, but you’re still here. He owes you that.”

She shakes her head, sitting up quickly, her words catch in her throat.

“But that’s exactly where i seem trapped. He doesn’t owe me. It’s my job, it’s my own commitment! When my parents were still around i swore to stay by his side.”

“You were no older than 6 when you probably grasped the idea that he was there in your home to take the place of a sibling. Y/n, you didn’t swear anything. I wish you wouldn’t bind yourself to this idea-”

“I’m not binded to anything. I am proud to protect my people.”

“Someone once asked me if i’m so busy protecting everyone else, who protects me.”

She stills. Surprised that i’m quoting her.

When the world becomes a sword, she became a shield.

She purses her lips, tugging on a braid that rests over her shoulder.

“That’s different.”

I laugh. Not because its funny. Because its ironic.

“How? You, me, and two dumb, reckless siblings to look after. Lo’ak and spider aren’t that different. Suppose that means neither are we.”

She leans back, her head roughly resting on the bark.

I take a breath, leaning back with her.

“Letting go of that bind doesn’t mean giving up.” I whispered. Staring up at the sky, watching as it creeped and treaded towards a crepuscular cape.

“I know”

She whispered, leaning her head opposite of my direction to rests on her shoulder.

“But he’s all i have left.”

She rasps, looking downwards once again.

My fingers brush hers. I try to focus my eyes on anything but her. The burnished bronze bark shades of the forest around me grapples with my gaze.

I know she hates pity.

A fleeting fracture, half exposed, and bare. Bones shaking under scared skin stretched over a blanket of shame. I think weakness is her greatest enemy. Vulnerability is nothing but a pallid guise of weakness’ tide. In obdurate grace, She stands elate. I’m nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her storms.

She’s an ocean I fear is too vast to cross. I've let myself drown before.

“Y/n. I’m so sorry.”

I whisper. But as apologetic as I am, I can’t decide what I’m apologizing for.

Her parents being dead?

Her crippling fear of losing what fragile pieces of her family she had left?

The specters of her lost, an elegy of ceaseless pain. It forces me to remember I'm presumably forgotten, along with the stars and the sky I once promised i’d give her.

As the sky grew a bit darker. We sat in a silence that danced with serenity.

the clouds like shredded silk, tinged with the delicate hues of a bruise that would never fade.

It was me she trusted in this moment. Not Lo’ak coming in clutch with bad jokes or my father with years of experience I can only pray I’d amount to earn.

Me. Who’s soul took the shape of a shadow that loomed in the darker corners of her heart.

What did I do to deserve this?

As I look at her now-, Y/n.

The y/n.

the woman who had walked through infernos that would have incinerated lesser souls, whose spirit had been forged in the crucible of war, who bore scars both visible and unseen. Her eyes, shadowed by a thousand skies and golden eclipses, had softened now, their fierce gleam dimmed for a brief moment of vulnerability, her very presence carrying the weight of bereavment.

The sky and I share a flicker of breath, as though it too understood the gravity of the moment.

I want to capture her words with my hands, catch them.

These words of hers, the ones I can only beg to hear once again, alike the essence of something rare and blackened, with sorrow yet magnificent in its pain. She spoke of battles fought not just against the sky demons, but against creatures that lurked in the recesses of her mind, devouring fragments of her peace. The blood she had spilled is not foreign but it rots all the same.

At the cost of being blunt, it fucking pisses me off. Beyond that if I can ever find the words.

How could they-

No. How could anyone hurt her?

How could anyone take what they’ve taken from her and continue to reach for what precious circle of family she had left?

How could anyone—any hand—have so defiled such sanctity? faceless figures, cowards. Fighting from far away in the sky ships that stir the wind and attempt poorly to glide upon air that was never even theirs to breathe.

I want to be the shield that keeps her safe, and at from the storms that sweep her away and leave her with scars.

I don’t want to watch her fight for the rest of my life-

Please. I don’t want her to fight for the rest of hers.

Is this where I have to stay? Is this where I have to wait?

I am consumed by an ardor so profound it defies the very essence of language.

No. No, I'm done waiting.

I’ve dispensed myself in my mistakes for 3 years. I may never entirely forgive myself for what I’ve done to her, but I refuse to keep drowning myself in it.

I want to live. Not survive off her faint glances and light touches.

No I want her. I want her back and I want her to be mine.

How could I ever think I could move on? That I could outgrow her? The thought of any other woman in the clan-

No, any other female known to this ground, to want any of them the way I want her, it’s wrong. It’s unnatural. A parallel that threads like a citadel, a monument of sinew and steel, fissures spider webbing beneath My skin, cracks through which light might enter or shatter me under her touch.

And eywa, I’m tired of it. I’m so fucking tired of it. How much longer will I be consumed by this need that cannot be satiated by any other presence other than hers?

I want to hear her laugh again. I want to hold her again. I want to kiss her neck and trace my palms down the curve of her waist and her thighs. I want to hear her call my name breathless into the darkness while I capture her moans with my lips and watch her hair spill through my fingers.

I want to hold her hand. I want to kiss her until I can’t breathe. I want to feel the weight of her on top of me and under me and her legs wrapped around my waist.

If she allowed me I would beg her on my knees. I would kiss her ankles up to her hairline and whisper apologies that sound more like worship.

I want her to pull me away. I want to drown in her.

Can she possibly know? Her absence is not a void but a presence—vast, unbearable, and omnipotent—filling every crevice of thought, every trembling nerve that dares to remember. Her voice lingers in the silence, a phantom melody that unspools endlessly. she might as well be a rope to my wrists, tightening like a noose.

I don’t s resist her. Even torment is preferable to the sterility of forgetting, to the annihilation of what remains of her in me.

How could she possibly not understand? The things I would do for her?

I would crawl through dirt and dust and call it scared ground if she so much as stepped there. What is love if not worship and what is yearning if not devotion?

Because she’s so beautiful. She’s pretty. She’s gorgeous. She’s perfect. She’s every word I can think of and all the words I’ve yet to learn.

So much so it’s almost otherworldly. i stand before like a penitent before an altar that will never grant me absolution. if this longing is a sickness in my soul, i'm going to cherish it because it's hers.

Watch as she unmakes me. Slowly, exquisitely—dismantling my pride, my reason, my very humanity, until nothing remains but the hollow echo of her name. And I would call that emptiness sacred.

If anger is what she needs so be it. betray me, despise me, reduce me to carrion before her feet.

Must I weep for gratitude? for even in degradation? Done.

I will wait.

“I don’t like just waiting here.” The silence that had once reigned was shattered. Unveiling the world anew, pulling the soul from its slumber. I’m shaken awake from my momet of zoning away. It doesn’t take me long too realize it was Y/n’s voice. Well obviously- who else could it have been? the tree?

“Huh? I’m sorry- did you speak?”

She squints at me. Her eyes flicker before she stands to her feet.

“I said I don’t like this waiting. I should have never suggested it. I’m sorry.”

She brushes herself off before grabbing her bow and the woven bag of targets, slinging her bow to tuck under her arm and the sack over her shoulder. I scramble to my feet, grabbing my own bow and water skin.

“It was stupid of me to try to avoid this- i’m just gonna talk to spider when i get back.”

She mumbles.

“Oh- wait. Eywa you’re fast.”

I chuckle awkwardly. All she can do is toss me a blank glance over her shoulder. She moved swiftly, not making much if any sound.

I stop infornt of her, reaching out to offer her my free arms to carry the bag.

“Do you need-”

“No. lets get moving. I want to get you back before dark or else your father will have a heart attack scare.”

She cuts me off, swaying past me and onto the path where ouyr ikrans perched somehwre ahead.

“You know-”

I jog behind her, casually steadying myself to match her pace.

“You know my father doesn’t need to know where i am every second of the day.”

She shrugs.

“And yet, he does.”

Touche.

Brush it off Neteyam. I mean, how bad would it really be if the woman you were in love with saw you as nothing but a marionette tethered pathetically to his father?

Oh. That sounds worse than i thought.

Easy fix? Right? …Right?

“He’s just looking out for you.”

She enlightens, with a quiet precision, each word a steady beat, unadorned by excess or hesitation.

My whole life i've wanted people to see past the shadow of my father. But now i’m begging her to.

Why can’t she see the me that has shaped with my own hands, not inherited or molded by the past.

I riven between the maddening urge to captivate and the harrowing awareness of my own profound inadequacy. She, an indomitable presence, even though i've known her since she was learning to walk, is still so fascinatingly intimidating.

“I don’t-”

I stumble over a branch. Was it a branch? It could have been a root or a rock. Whatever it was. I lurch forward before unevenly shifting, then I awkwardly brushed it off, pretending it hadn’t happened.

She stops and stares at me. Painfully unimpressed with my lack of attention to the ground.

I clear my throat, trying not to wince.

“I don’t need him to look after me.”

She shrugs, walking ahead of me without much thought. “Well of course not. Look at how gracefully you coordinated that fall.”

“I didn’t fall.”

“Are you calling me blind.”

“No part of my body other then my feet touched the ground. That’s not a fall. It’s a…stammer.”

I cross my arms, suddenly my gaze finds interest in the bright colors that crowd a herb patch near by.

“Oh and what a beautiful stammer it was.”

She rolls her eyes, effortlessly shifting everything in her arms to only one side as she raises two fingers to her lips and create a whistle sound.

I see a shape of something winged and large in the distance. A cacophony of colors and jagged lines, and abstract forms are layered atop one another, intermingling and overlapping in a way that feels both disorienting and captivating

The sounds of flapping wings resonate from afar, an unseen presence demands attention by echoing the sound of it’s arrival. Kailo lands first, followed by rey’sa.

Kailo was larger than the average ikran. That’s what Norm told us the night after Y/n’s ikinimya.

I still remember that day. Watching her dodge and duck away from the literal jaws of death on the ikran rookery. I saw her, and in that fleeting moment, my soul seemed to abandon me, leaving flesh frozen as I watched her plummet off the cliff side. My heart might as well have been ripped from my chest. It felt as though stricken with some fatal malady, ceased to beat. A dire, unshakable certainty gripped me—that she was gone. as good as dead. That she had slipped from the grasp of light.

Kailo’s colors seem to pulsate with a tumultuous vibrancy. Bold and garish in their audacity, writhe and clash which burn with an almost sacrilegious intensity, to the shrieking blues and grotesque purple, the hues seem to scream at the beholder, drowning the senses in a discordance of visual tumult.

a gnawing sense of impotence. They spill, uncontained, stretching and sprawling, as though in the midst of some violent outpouring of emotion or thought. Jagged, fractured red lines pierce the air, juxtaposed by sweeping curves, both jagged and fluid in their simultaneous grace and aggression.

The spread of red, blue, and purple creates a furor of colors, intermingling and overlapping in a way that feels both disorienting and captivating.

My eyes, without any conscious volition, as if led by some hidden magnetism, gravitated toward Rey’sa. Her brown, green, and yellow skin clash in a manic strife. The splashes of brown are deep and earthbound. It pushes it’s weight against the lighter, more volatile green, incessant, and vibrant, it twists and coils in unruly shapes, as though struggling to break free from the heavy grasp of the brown. Meanwhile, the yellow flashes like a burst of lightning, crackling with energy.

She shakes her head back in forth in a quick wild nutation before tiltidng her head towards me, a high noted-shrill leaving her as if informing me of her arrival.

I give her neck a few pats, tightening my saddle with one hand while I throw myself to straddle atop, hiking up my leg and shifting in a slight jump.

Y/n doesn’t mount until she secures the targets and her bow in her side saddle, handling it with the utmost care. As if parting with it was akin to severing a vital thread that tied her soul to her body.

There was a quiet dominion everywhere she went. Trailing her steps. In her orbit, the air became sanctified. Her back straight as if someone held a board to it to ensure it never faletered from it’s position.

I mount rey’sa after ensuring everything was fastened. I reach back for my kuru. The movements to connect my kuru to my ikran are so unmistakably ingrained. Practiced and performed to a point of cognitive habituation.

The moment I see the cords connect, I feel it.

The traverse vast expanse between us thinning into a network that flows effortlessly, a seamless exchange of synapses that make the sound of sensitive reverberations. It’s an undercurrent of synergistic sensations.

I shake my head to clear up the swift headrush that swept through when making the bond, my vision clearing almost instantly.

I turn to my side, seeing y/n already staring at the sky with a quiet resolve.

“I’m going to talk to him when we get back.”

She looks at her hands, they almost bruise with how tightly she grips the reigns. Her gaze is suffused in a promise that I feel proud to say she only shares with me.

“Good.you two should work things out.”

She nods, shifting, adjusting her legs.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

She shrugs.

“Talking sense into me.”

I laugh. But I don’t mean to. It’s accidental. It echoes between us

“Nothing makes sense when you have stupid reckless people like Lo’ak or spider in your life.”

If only she knew things only ever made sense when I was with her.

₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺☀︎₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺☀︎₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊

NETEYAM POV; back at high camp..

When we arrived back at high camp, I watched y/n run off to wherever spider was, leaving me alone to return the targets to the supply tent.

I should have told her right there and then. Why didn’t I?

I linger in my self-pity for only a moment, then steady myself, refocusing on the task at hand. I start putting the targets back and their respective places. Behind me, the faint sound of a new presence disrupts the silence.

The steps are quiet, as if treading.

“Finally, Lo’ak. Come help me put these away.”

I wave him over without turning my head

“Guess again..”

I jump. In all the year’s iv’e lived with Lo’ak, Iv’e never known him to have a voice so feminine sounding.

I turn, and I feel my breath leave my body in a flicker.

Kyuna stands in front of the tent flap, with one methodical move she uses her finger to tie the drawstring of the flap closed, the sudden lack of light making this whole endeavor even more horrifying.

her presence lingers, a silken thread weaving through the space between us.

“My eywa, you’re so jumpy, Teyam.”

Here’s a fun fact. No one in the entire clan I’ve been born and raised in, calls me ‘teyam’ other than my siblings and occasionally my mother. The sobriquet came about when Lo’ak was about 3, and had trouble pronouncing “Neteyam”. Net or Teyam was his go-to. Honestly I never understood how hard it was to just push the two together but anyways,

When Kyuna uses its imbued with a sense of familiarity and ease, felt unmerited. A familiarity that hasn’t been earned. Much less deserved.

Is it fair? To say something as simple as a shortened version of my own name to be so intimate?

My subconscious drive takes the shape of a marionette. Instinctively moving me backwards the split second she steps forward, her chest invading what I’m positive marks the starting point of “personal space.”

It’s almost like my body repulses the idea of touching her in any way that could even immediately be seen as intimate.

“I finally caught you alone. You’re always so busy..”

She makes her fingers mimic a walking motion as they trail up my chest, neck, before tapping my nose.

I clear my throat, grabbing her wrist and gently placing it back at her side.

“Kyuna this doesn’t seem very-“

“Oh shut up! You’re always so worried about everything. Can you ever let loose?”

She laughs, almost manically, trying despairingly to make her constant interruption seem cute or innocent.

”speaking of loose.”

My eyes flicker down to where she hooks a finger under the waistband of my knife, pulling me closer to her. almost trying to pry her way between where the woven strip of fabric keeps my loincloth resting on my hips.

My eyes widen.

“Nope! Okay! That’s just- nope. No. We are not. I’m going to remain clothed. Thank you..”

I push her away by her shoulders this time.

She Rolls her eyes.

“You’re so stiff sometimes”.

Stiff. Interesting choice of words.

As she bats her eyelashes at me and pouts, I can’t decide whether I feel sad or sorry for her. Or both. Is my attention worth all this? Does she think this is attractive?

Unfortunately, I don't think I have the patience to indulge her.

“Kyuna this is not-“

I sigh, running a hand down my face. Frustrated at what part of that incredibly, small brain in her head thinks that this is okay??

“Kyuna you can’t be doing this. I don’t want to be seen as someone who sneaks around with anyone like this.”

“No one has to know.”

“Right! Because nothing is happening here.”

I speak slowly, as if trying to explain to a small child, holding her hands as I place them down at her sides once again.

“I. Don’t. Want. This.”

I reiterate.

She throws her hands up in frustration, groaning loudly.

“Then what do you want, Neteyam? You never tell or do anything that shows it!”

I raise my eyebrow, quietly standing and watching her tantrum.

A part of me does finally feel coerced into pity. Why did she obsess over this? Over me?

“Women throw themselves at you! They practically drool over you and you don’t even blink! It’s like you don’t care.”

She continues.

“Do you think the whole playing “hard to get” and the “I don’t care” facade will last forever? Because I see right through it.”

She pokes my chest, making me step back once again, my hand behind me resting on the wooden pillar that held the tent up. My fingers anxiously and absently tracing the grooves in the smooth wood.

“There’s something or someone you want. “

“Kyuna, if you are so fixated on there being someone, do you honestly believe, in your heart, that it’s you?”

“Why cant it be?”

“I’m not saying it can’t be, I'm telling you it’s not!”

“Look at you! You won’t even touch me. You’re probably just shy?”

“I’m ‘shy’ because I wont have sex with you inside this tent? Sure. let's put it that way.”

I turn my back to her, starting to pile up the targets and untie the hanging cord around each one. Maybe if I act like she’s not there, she’ll disappear.

There's a pulse of silence before i feel a hand on my shoulder, sending a shrilling shudder down my spine.

“Let’s not dance around this Neteyam.”

She snakes to duck underneath me, placing herself to occupy the very small space between me and the wall, her nose nearly touching mine, I feel her breath for only a shred of a second before I flinch the other way.

“You can’t keep running from this.”

“Yes, I can. The question is, will you stop chasing me.”

"I won't stop chasing what I know belongs to me."

It’s unnerving. How her tone treads that unmistakable subtle possessiveness. That’s how Kyuna works. In her mind, you belong to her whether she realizes it or not. This is how she plays the game. Shifts the board, moves the pieces while you're not looking, and when you turn around, she tries to convince you that it was you who can’t remember what you did with your pieces.

I know where my pieces are. They’re my fucking pieces. Not hers.

“I want you”

She declares.

“No, you want something no one else has.”

I reason.

“No You don’t understand-”

“Something no one else has, but I can’t satisfy that for you-”

Our voices overlap.

“I love you.”

“You love the idea of me.”

Maybe I really do feel sorry for her.

“Can you really think of anyone else in this clan that would be a better wife for you other than me?? They wouldn’t last.”

Nevermind. I’m annoyed again.

“Is it fun? Thinking you’re better than everyone else?”

I query.

“No. Thinking isn’t fun. Knowing is my forte.”

Ah, so she doesn't enjoy thinking. What a shocker.

“Ever since the return of the sky people we’ve been weakened.”

I raise my brow, my face furrowing into something new.

“I don’t follow.”

“Don’t you see it? They only dwell in the past, we’re too afraid to fight the way we used to. We’ve all heard the stories. Our clan used to be ruthless. Feared by others. Now we’re just an afterthought. We’re afraid. But you, once you’re olo’eyktan you could change that, And i could help.”

She speaks, and the sound—that sound—is as if some unfortunate hand struck an untuned instrument, a mere echo of what it could have been. A cruel, discordant note that rends the stillness of the soul.

She is like a child playing a game whose rules she cannot understand, and whose consequences she cannot foresee. But the pain, the pain is real. It is deep, it is sharp, it is unspoken. And yet, she speaks again, and again, with the same ignorance.

Maybe I'm offended because it was all real to me.

Watching my mother wake up crying in the middle of the night plagued with memories of hometree was real.

Watching the love of my life lose her family because of the sky people’s destruction, that was real.

Standing here right now while they dangle our survival over our heads is real.

“I suggest you quit while you’re stepping ahead, Kyuna, You don’t know what you speak of.”

My former tone vanished, replaced by a gravity that demanded attention.

She looks embarrassed. And why wouldn’t she be?

She stammers, fidgeting with one of her braids.

“I was only- you don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t. Do you think I’m impressed by this?

I don’t know what comes over me. Anger? Frustration? Annoyance.

I take a step closer, than another, until she’s pedaling backwards to remain ahead of me.

“Do you think this is attractive? Impressive? Do you think this is the kind of thing I yearn for at night? Stupidity? Ignorance? Do you think I get off on this? On you? Because I can promise you I don't.”

She gulps.

My father once told me that fear controls people.

I vowed to never fall victim to that again. Controlling others. I did it once and I lost the love of my life.

But maybe, control was potential. So was power. And if I have to shape my shadow into something scary and unapologetic to cast away such intrusive presences like hers? I’d justify it.

“Neteyam, I didn’t mean-“

She reaches for my arm, and I’m beyond tired of her touching me.

“Get out, Kyuna. I’m dismissing you.”

“But-“

“Out. Now.”

She stands in silence before turning to leave.

I feel my chest tighten its knot of air I didn’t even know was there until she’s out of my sight.

I don’t like pulling rank on people. But am I so terrible if I say that felt good??

I take a breath, steadying myself. Whatever just happened I could unpack later.

Right now, I allowed myself to be busy with the task at hand.

My sense of peace vanished once again when I saw a figure enter the tent out of the corner of my eye.

Can’t she take a hint?

“For the love of eywa!”

I groan.

“I’m not going to have sex with you! What do you want from me!? Just keep it in your fucking loincloth and-“

I turn around to see my father staring at me in horror.

“Dad?“

₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺☀︎₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺☀︎₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺

Y/ns Pov:

you shouldn’t be nervous to talk to someone you’ve known my whole entire life and yet a more insidious, gnawing sensation sears at the back of your mind.

Maybe it’s guilt you feel. because the last time you spoke you brought up the past we both wish we could forget.

It was an unspoken rule between us. Not to bring up your mother.

It was never a spoken pact. Youboth knew all too well what happened with grief was left untouched. It hardens into something immutable.

you care about each other too much to put yourselves through that pain again.

You think the sky is sinking. The darker it became the more it seemed to cave downward. Maybe if you climbed a tree you could brush your fingertips against the stars and hear them whisper words of comfort.

You were a warrior. A “lieutenant” as Jake would call you. You had an invitingly strange familiarity to challenges.

Why did the feeling you had right now akin itself to the one you have before a raid?

Every step you take feels closer to the fire.

You grabbed the metal railing and hoisted yourself up to the wooden platform, ignoring the stairs made for human sized feet.

Ducking under the small door you felt the back of your neck brush the cool metal.

No matter how many times you’ve been in the shack, entering it always felt like a fever dream. The white and gray that washed the walls were such a huge contrast to the natural shades that hued pandora’s grounds. It had a way of making you feel empty. Like the crowded space could seep into a pit dwelling portal.

You treaded carefully, minding your anxiously swishing tail and praying that it wouldn’t be the cause of a beaker or something irreplaceable shattering.

Max and norm come into view. They sit at a table hunched over a flat board that sits between them. The board has little white and black boxes and pieces that all differ in size and shape. They scatter across the board, stilling in their place, waiting to be moved.

Norm’s eyes light up as he laughs manically, grabbing a black piece by the curved top and shifting it to one of the white pieces, knocking it over with a swift flick and taking the spot the white piece once inhabited.

“Have fun doing my dishes for a week.”

“You’ve been spending too much time in your avatar, you've finally lost it. You know I'm winning, right?

“Don’t even think for one second you haven’t been shoving pieces in your pocket every time I get up for coffee.”

Max scoffs.

“You’re a caffeine addict.”

“And you’re a cheater!”

“Those are fighting words, I’d watch myself.”

“Then empty your pockets! Come on! If you have nothing to hide.”

“What’s in a man’s lab coat is his own damn business!”

You stand awkwardly, exaggerating a cough to emphasize your presence.

Their heads snap towards you and every trace of frustration and theatrical betrayal vanish.

“Oh hey Kiddo.”

Norm waves, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. Max follows behind him, cracking his back with a groan before smiling at you with a warm familiarity.

You stand awkwardly greeting the two with respectful nods.

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Oh no, never, You caught us at a good time.”

Max waves away the notion of apology from the air,

“To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Norm leans against the wall, grabbing a spare mask made for avatars and reaching out his hand to offer it to you.

You shake your hand, gently pushing the mask away.

“I’m not staying long.Is spider around?”

“He's outside.”

The three of you jump a bit at the sounds of footsteps above you, thick metallic thuds echo from the outside.

“Oh. well, now he’s up..side?” Norm gestures to the roof where spider’s evident movement was heard.

“Oh son of a- he’s gonna tear his stitches. That’s like the 5th time in the last 4 days.”

Max groaned, running to grab a med kit that sat on a table in the corner.

“I_..I can go let him know you guys don’t want him climbing?”

Your tail thwacks your shoulder blades. An exemplary allude of nervousness.

Norm nods, folding up the black and white squared board that laid flat on the table.

“That’d be great, he listens to you.”

You exited the shack without words, looking up at the slightly slanted roof and metal poles that curved embed with the shape. You jumped, hoisting yourself up over the awkward overhang before sitting atop it. You paused when two dangling pale legs came into view, you crawled over the next curve and were met with Spider’s back.

You froze for a moment.

Because it’s just now you realize that you thought the anticipation was what intimidated you. Just the walk from your ikran to the shack itself like like an unendruable trek towards something unmapped. Uncharted.

Your clan glorified you because they cannot see the contrast within recklessness and bravery.

To everyone around you, you were never afraid of the unknown. Dancing where others struggled to stand on uneven ground. Danger was an adventure. Not an intimidation. In a sky devoid of light you never feared the dark.

The wait was never what you should have feared. The uncertainty, in the silent torment of your thoughts was a comfort you’ve taken forgranted.

Because now you have to face him.

You can’t pretend to be made of stone forever. Eventually you’ll break like glass.

You reach your hand out, tapping his shoulders.

“Spider.”

His name comes out hoarse. The two syllables sound as if they had to pry thesmelves from the depths of your throat.

He turns around, and you can’t get yourself to meet his eyes. They settle in his lap, and you see his knife and a sharpening tool resting there.

“Hey.”

He whispered, turning around to face you. He places the knife and sharpening tool in a pouch resting on his hip.

There's an awkward silence as you both turn to face the edge of the mountain where only a few marui’s scattered and stopped where the natural stone barrier of highcamp enclosed you all inside.

Your breath hitches as your eyes follow two na’vi children running around playing a game, tackling each other and screeching.

And for a moment, for a fragment of a second, you swear you see you and spider.

“Norm and Max don’t want you up here.”

You say it unintentionally. But you needed something to fill the space between you. The silence demanded too much of your attention.

Spider glances over at you, swinging his feet absentmindedly.

“Yeah..I know. I just-”

He tugs at his locs lightly.

“I don’t know. I can’t think with my feet on the ground.”

Really? You never would have guessed.

“I think we should talk.”

“About what?”

You look at him, wondering if he’s forgotten your argument.

He squints at you before his gaze settles on the ground.

“Oh. That.”

“Did you forget.”

He shook his head.

“No. I tried though.”

Silence strikes again. Suffocating the expanse of what pressed between you two. It’s an oppressive hum of the unendurable truth that is heavy and refuses to remain unacknowledged.

“I’m sorry, I was an asshole. I know you were just worried and-”

He paused.

“No. Let’s start with this.

Y/n you’re the strongest person I know.

You’re intelligent and badass and a warrior. And I love that about you. But I remember a time where you’re life didn’t revolve around this war. And sometimes I feel like- part of why you put yourself into that position to protect me…I don’t want you going out and risking you’re life because I’m weak and small and-“

“You’re not weak.”

You cut him off. The edge of your voice makd his hands stop their fidgeting.

“You’re not weak. You’re just not like us.”

You expect hi to flinch or scowl when you say that but he does nothing of the sort. There’s a sadness behind his eyes shadowed by the long ignored truth.

You sigh, staring back up at the dark sky.

“We can paint as many layers and shades of blue as we can and it still can’t hide what’s underneath.”

“Yeah. A sky demon.”

He mumbles quietly.

“A product of mistakes that someone else made.”

You correct.

He's silent, he stares ahead.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

You nod, swaying your feet in a rhythm that matches his own.

“If we both were to climb a tree and throw ourselves off the highest branches, who would have a better chance of lesser injury. You, or me?”

Spider is quiet in his response. Almost embarrassed.

“You.”

“Which one of us can run faster?”

He rolls his eyes subtly, shoving you softly with his palm.

“You.”

“Who has more knowledge about the sky demons and their weaknesses.”

“Me?”

You both pause . You smile and nudge him back.

“That doesn’t make either of us stronger or weaker from the other. We’re different. But there is no difference that can divide what has grown between us, spider.”

He finally looks at you.

“I never should have brought up sa’nok. It was wrong.”

You whispered

For a moment you both slip to the center of your spiral. The center that was slowly unraveling to reveal a pain you both could wish never existed.

“But that is our common ground. We were raised under the same roof, in the same family.”

He leans his head on your shoulder, and the motion makes your still, your spine stiffening.

It’s not unwelcomed. Just unexpected.

“When they died I thought that they would separate us.”

Pain and fear is heard in his voice. And Jake says you and Lo’ak are a trouble making duo? You’ve clearly never met pain and fear. Two wretched companions that gnaw at the marrow of every shred of hope. It's the shadow that stalks even in the most mundane of moments.

“They vouched for me. Even when the rest of the clan said I didn't belong with a family.”

“I don't care what the rest of the clan thinks.”

You affirm.

Spider blinks at you. Seemingly shocked.

“But they’re your people.”

“So are you!”

You toss your head back and groan, taking your frustrations out on the sky.

“Why does everyone else get to tell me who I love? Who do I choose to protect and value as my own?”

Spider is quiet. He goes to answer, but nothing comes out.

“I don’t know.” he whispers.

“I don’t know either. Listen, no one gets to tell us that we aren’t family. Family isn’t always who you share blood with.

I may not have lived with you continuously throughout my life, but I would die for you at the end of the day. You’re my family because I remember playing with you in the river and chasing you down the stream. You’re my brother because I remember staying beside you even when other children said you being in my home meant that we shared your ‘human germs’.”

He stares at you. You can’t decipher what he’s thinking.

“Why should anyone else decide what you are to me?”

“Neytiri can.”

Spider interjects. Her name isn’t resentful in his voice, it’s rather longing for something distant. Something he’s never had.

You look down. Regretful.

“I can’t change the way she thinks about humans. She’s just afraid, and shes protective of her family-”

“I know that. But she’s also protective of you. And I don’t hate you for it. But-”

He stops. Staring down at his hands as if they are stained with something you can’t see.

“But what?”

You inquire gently, like trying to coax a shy child to speak.

“I’m gonna sound like such an asshole if I say it.”

You snort.

“It’s okay. I felt the same way earlier.”

He takes a breath.

“It’s not fair. They were parents to both of us. But you're the one taken in after they die. They would never do that to me. Because I'm not a na’vi.”

“Spider, I know it feels like that but they aren’t abandoning you for some sort of vengeance-

My- our mother and neytiri were like sisters. Jake and our parents were close. They promised that if anything happened to either of them they would step up for me.”

“No. They promised to step up to take any children she had under their wing.”

“Spider…”

“I’m not mad at you. It’s just frustrating. You get off at the easy lane while I'm going 90 miles to nothin’ off a cliff.”

And there it was again. That sting.

“Easy lane? Did you think this, any of this was easy for me? Having neytiri and mo’at braid my hair the way our mother would? Having jake accidentally call me “Zensira” for the first few months by accident? That day we had to leave the old village and come to high camp, the day I walked past the home we grew up in for a final time? Saying a last goodbye to the place where every moment of laughter, every memory, every fragment of joy I've known in my life feel so empty? So dark and cold?”

Spider shakes his head frantically.

“No! No of course not, we both lost something that day. I remember it too..It’s just..They’re there for you. You know?”

“I'm here for you.”

You reiterate. Almost desperate. At this moment you felt like a spider and you were onlookers into a mirror where he refused to acknowledge that you could both see your reflection upon the same surface.

“Iv’e been here. I’m staying here. So is Lo’ak, and kiri, tuk, norm, and max-”

You stop mid sentence as you remember what was scractching at the back of your brain.

“Oh by the way, max told me to tell you to stop tearing your stitches.”

You both are quiet. And then you laugh. You both laugh hard. And you nor him really know why.

As the laughter dies down he rests his head on your shoulder, whispering into the air.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

What were you both sorry for? Everything. Nothing. Somethings. Because this is where you both surrender. Even while you both remain tainted with the bitter aftertaste of unresolved tension, you withdrew, but not in peace—no, it was more like the calm that precedes a storm, an uneasy lull where the heart strains against its own quietude.

You both were stronger than what or whoever came between you. That was a fact.

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*emerges from my cave*

Hehe..hi…long time no see, huh?

Now before you throw the pitchforks at me, I can explain my delay of this chapter. For those of you who have read my bio, you already know I’m a film student. In the next few weeks me and a group of my classmates are going to start shooting a film entirely directed, produced, and written by us. I’m the art director and getting ready to travel (we’re filming in another location) has made me so busy…on another note I had to rewrite this chapter almost 5 times because it never came out right until now.

But, allow us to move on a happier note…

Happy Valentine’s Day and Black history month guys! I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter as much as I did.

Neteyam and Y/n have finally started they’re training sessions, so buckle up for more tension to come. And FINALLY! Spider and y/n are back on speaking terms. Phew. (This will not be the last argument they have in this story 😚)

Writing for Kyuna is so funny. Like, take a hint please shawty. He don’t want you. Ugh. It's desperation for me. And we left off on a cliffhanger with Jake and Neteyam? That will be an interesting conversation for next chapter..hm..ANYWAYSSS I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

btw for my arcane watchers, do neteyam and y/n give you guys ekko and jinx vibes??

₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊⋆☾⁺☀︎₊₊⋆⁺☀︎₊☾⁺☀︎₊𖦹✮⋆⁺₊

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