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ziteyra · 1 year ago

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A fish out of water

A two part Oneshot

Part 1

Aounung X female! Metkayina

🌪️themes: veeeery slowburn, fluff, love, foreign environments, dates, fighting

🌪️ Warnings : none :)

🌪️ Characters: Aounung, little bit of Loak, female Metkayina Tribe Navi

🌪️ Summary: Anoung takes Loak up on a rekless bet on how long he would survive in the jungle. This is where he meets a mysterious forest Navi and slowly (or not) falls for her

🌪️ Wordcount (🥹) : ~ 4k

🐟 Notes: I am so sorry. I went incredibly overboard with this. Like jesususuususus. Don't know if even Eywa can forgive me for this half-finished monstrosity. Anyway, enjoy. Take your time. Have a nice week. Love ya

It all started with a stupid bet. Aou'nung felt remorse even thinking about it.

While beating Loak in of their thousand diving contests he went a bit too far with their banter.

As he usually did he called Loak all kinds of names. Both slow as a stone and as good of a fiber as his I ran. But Instead of playingly fighting the accusations as he always did he proposed something.

"Sure, I might not be fast in the water yet or the best at riding my Ilu but I bet you wouldn't even make it to the forest brother."

Aonung as stubborn as he was took him up on the offer. He fell right into the obvious trap. Telling their parents they wanted to have a tour of the coral reefs both Loak and Aou'nung snuck out without much hustle.

Thinking back at it Aou'nung had to congratulate himself both for his stupidity and bravery.

Loak landed the two of them on the outskirts of the forest just by the edge of the great cliffs that border the Metkayina territories.

"Well then, go on Aou'nung. I'll meet you back right here in three days. And if you swim back or leave in any way I'll tell everyone what a wuss U were." Loak grinned as he took off high above him on his Ikran. Aou'nung never really liked that animal, but now with him standing so close to the edge of the cliff and the forest right in front of him, he had to admit how useful one of them could be.

The first few hours were strange but easy for him. He felt the unknown terrain between his feet and saw many strange but beautiful animals he had only heard his father talk about.

As soon as the night set tho, both his mood and the forest changed completely. He couldn't just walk in a straight line through the forest anymore as he did the hours before neither could he trace back his steps. As beautiful as the big leaves and trees were in the day, they now just blocked every passage and every small ray of light trying to find its way to the ground. Even the calls of the once beautiful birds just echoed from tree to tree as Aoung had never heard it before.

He wasn't ready to admit defeat yet but he also knew that there wasn't much of a different choice for him but to keep going.

Right when the sun was completely gone from the sky and some tiny specs of moonlight could be seen he found a more or less safe and comfortable place to rest.

He had only taken a small woven blanket with him which he laid on the ground and moss beneath him.

Sitting down he realized how unwelcoming the forest truly felt to him. Even the shades of blue both of the sky he had seen during the day and of the flowers and trees seemed to be different from his skin. It seemed way more fitting to the patterns and tones on Kiri's and Loak's bodies now that he could take a closer look.

Although his blue skin seemed unnatural to him, there was still a soft glow coming from the familiar patterns on his body. In a way, he had rarely seen it. While the water usually reflected these lights and made them glow much brighter, here in the forest it seemed much more like small far away stars.

As much as he was fascinated by that it also startled him that there was a comparable glow coming from around him.

As he rubbed his eyes, trying to get them used to the odd lighting, he noticed that all the plants around him and even the tree bark emitted a glow much the same to his skin. Like the plants and corrals of the ocean, there was a glittering coming from almost every corner of the forest. A bit colder, he thought, than under the sea but maybe also not that different.

"Eywa lives and breathes in everything. Both nature and Navi, even if they are as strange as you" Aou'nung heard a voice coming from right above him. He tried his best not to jump to his feet immediately to not show any fear, but instead just turned his head in every possible direction.

"What are you, pale boy ?" the voice asked again, this time with a more fierce tone.

"Why would you care ?" Aou'nung replied. "And if you need to know, I'm the son of OLO'EYKTAN. I'm one of the most feared warriors of our clan and I am here to prove that a forest like yours is no match for me. They are nothing more than our island jungles."

"I see." The voice softened as without a sound a tall and majestic body Fell from the trees above him.

Before Aou'nung a tall Navi spanned her ornated bow a focused on him sharply with both of her yellow eyes. She was much taller than him and had skin as dark as the night sky with a pattern of glowing dots that seemed to hypnotize him the longer he looked at them.

Still, without fear in his voice, he answered: "I'd be grateful if you could help me navigate this forest of yours just for the next two days. I'm here more or less on a bet. With a friend of mine who looks just like you, he was a born Omatecicaya just like you, I suppose."

Her face remained unchanged but her head and long braids tilted a bit to the right. "Of whom do you speak? You surely are no son of our olo'eyktan. And you do not fit in here. You stink of fish."

Again Aou'nung shivered a bit under the harshness of her words, he could feel her judging gaze all over him.

" I come from the Metkayina. We belong to the sea like you to your strange forest. Now would you *please* take down your bow."

She didn't seem to move not even blink as Aou'nung slowly raised his hands and tried to carefully aim the bow away from him. "I am not your enemy, do you hear me?"

"You truly are no threat, fish men." His opponent answered. As quickly as she pulled to bow it disappeared behind her back. "But we can't leave you unsupervised."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aou'nung asked kind of relieved that the bow was gone but still concerned with her ominous answers.

"You will do whatever you need to do and I will keep an eye out for you. Now go!" The Navi snarred and as silent as a bird she disappeared into the tree branches above him.

"I don't even know your name," Aou'nung called out into the leaves above his head, now feeling kind of harmless being dismissed that easily. He at least wanted to make a lasting impression on that woman. And if she was anything like Loak that shouldn't be hard.

"Hey, did you hear me? What's your name? I'm Aou'nung, you know. The fastest diver of my village." He yelled into the night sky. But no one seemed to answer, only rustling leaves

and a little orange-eyed monkey screamed at his question.

Aou'nung squinted his eyes and looked closer at the animal. There seemed to be two or three just sitting in a smaller tree next to him.

An excellent choice to prove himself he thought, and even to gather something to eat.

Quickly brushing away all the smaller and bigger leaves in his path he made his way just under the tree. Securing his dagger on his bag he tried to grab a strong-looking liana and started to mount the tree, pulling himself upward.

It took him longer than expected and the moment he got close to the first real branch he realized that he was almost out of breath. He had no idea how to find a hold on the strong tree bark and even less how to coordinate his feet around the slimly Liana.

As he sat down on the shaky tree branch he couldn't see even a hint of the monkeys. Only the rustling leaves but this time coming from quite a distance beneath him.

A bit concerned with the height and not trusting the branch under him he pulled the remaining Liana up and wound it around his hips. Securing him like they used to secure small children, back in his village, to their parents when they go out onto the greater ocean for their first real swim.

While finishing his last knot, he felt something small pulling on his locks.

"I knew you'd come back eventually. And even if it was only to congratulate me on my climbing skills." he cheekily smiled. However, as an answer, he only got to hear a deafening scream of many small voices. Harshly turning around he found out where those screams were coming from.

He hadn't found the monkeys but much rather had the monkeys found him. More than 20 of them were gathered behind him hanging from branches and grinning their long sharp teeth at him. One of them had mustered up enough strength to sneak up behind him and was now holding multiple curls of his hair.

He only had enough time to pull back his hair as the monkeys unitedly started to jump towards him bringing the all tree branches to a concerning shake.

Even his half-hearted attempt at escape was quickly stopped by his own professionally bound knots which stopped him from even standing up and the monkeys started to gather around and on top of him only preventing him from completely falling off the tree.

It took more than an hour and in Aou'nungs mind more than days when the monkeys finally lost interest in him. He was lucky that he only had a few bite marks on his arms and upper body. The played with his hair tail and even his dagger with him unable to stop the rampaging hoard.

As he hung from his branch and the first small rays of sunlight reached his eyes a familiar face appeared before him.

"I am impressed Aou'nung, son of the olo'eyktan. I have never seen a fish be defeated by Syaksyuk so easily. They normally don't even hunt." She landed smoothly on his branch not even making it swing. Still, this time she got closer to him and inspected his bruises and spots. Aou'nung realized she smelled like the forest around him with a sweet aroma of earth and flowers all mixed like the green nature around him. She reminded him nothing of Kiri or Loak and if at all much more like their mother. As she carefully caressed his wounds he finally found his voice again.

"Couldn't have left me hanging a bit longer could you ?"

She smiled and Aou'nung thought to himself that maybe just for that, hanging around on an old tree branch for hours was worth it.

"You did not attack them, that was very good of you. Eywa says do not attack what you do not need or what doesn't hunt you. One day we all go back to her." she still smiled and her voice sounded like a song Aou'nung hadn't heard since his childhood.

"Again, I still don't know your name. How can I even thank you for your rescue if I don't know it."

"You do not need to, I did not rescue you, Aou'nung," she whispered, continuing to smile.

While Aou'nung tried to process those words she again disappeared into the woods but this time looking back at him with a grin on her face.

Aou'nung knew he shouldn't have been surprised but still, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. Now, a little less hopeless and still with her faint smell in his memory he started to loosen the knot binding him to the tree. He almost forgot about his bet with Loak, now focused on a new mission. To find his secret follower again and at least find out her name.

Still shaking in his legs he managed to balance himself on the branch and look around to fully take in his surroundings. Sadly, he couldn't quite remember which direction she climbed off to but he was sure it couldn't have been far.

Though his eyes weren't even yet comfortable with the night he could already feel the sun rising again under the thick roof of leaves the forest made up above him.

Not risking to climb any higher he decided to make his way downwards again in the hopes of many being able to find some kind of footprint to follow. Although he didn't expect much he still felt disappointed reached the ground. His feet and hand bruised by the climbing, he lay close to the ground like he once saw Loak do it when. Back then he remembered, Loak tried to teach him and his sister about their technics of hunting and gathering by reading the footprints and clues the animals of the forest left behind. And even though he could make out some kind of marks on the ground he could neither identify which animal they belonged to nor which way they were heading.

Laying on the ground, his tail twitching restlessly, he felt like an idiot. A fish out of water he thought. How Loak would laugh at him for being even worse at this than he was at diving. Even while Loak wasn't that bad at it as Aou'nung had to admit to himself.

Words of his father came to his mind back when he thought about talked the always present Way of the water.

Like a river, Aou'nung, finding his way through a mountain, must be ever-changing. Never resting until we can be one with Eywa. All our senses must help us to be like the water.

Aou'nungs stomach clenched together as thought about his father. He had never been this far away from home and the only thing keeping his mind straight was the memory of a Omatecicaya he might never see again.

"All our senses," Aou'nung spoke to himself and closed his eyes. He knew he would never be able to find anything familiar on those strange forest grounds but there was one thing he could recognise again. Both her smell and her step were something he would surely never forget again.

And he knew that she had to be somewhere around him. Watching and waiting for him to perhaps embarrass himself again. He smiled thinking of her many even being truly impressed by his skill and immediately concentrated himself.

Underwater, the smell was not as important but one thing he learned was to recognize even the small ripples and waves animals and Navi made while navigating through it.

Just like that, he spend the next hours rigorously hunting an illusive smell and the image of a Navi that just wouldn't leave his mind. Only did he stop when reaching a great clearing between all the trees and bushes. He didn't know how long he had been walking but he saw the sun standing bright above his head. When he looked around he felt a sense of accomplishment as his search brought him to an arrow garnished with the same ornaments he had seen on her bow a while back.

Pulling out the arrow from the thick tree he saw something behind it that he never expected to see at such an unfamiliar place. A great and running river broad and lively almost like the ones he knew from home.

Walking along the river he recognized a familiar voice, but not in the lovely tones he remembered, much rather screaming and cursing in ways he had rarely heard before. Gripping the arrow tight Aou'nung immediately started sprinting towards the noise.

Arriving at another clearing where his Navi, he had searched for so long was fighting intensity with a big menacingly looking fish.

Not a second went by and Aou'nung immediately jumped here to help. He knew that fish although he had rarely seen it out in the open ocean. It has scales as thick as a stone and if you didn't know where to hurt it you were better of leaving it in peace. But Aou'nung knew exactly where his weakness was, using the arrow he still held in his hands, he rammed it right under the giant fin of the fish hitting it right in the heart. Just in a few seconds The big twitching body Lost all its strength and fell onto the two jamming them together.

"Little fish! What are you doing here, is supposed to be the one guarding you." She gasped out in surprise but quite possibly also because of the fish pressing heavily on her chest.

"Well you kind of neglected your supervision duty and at last, didn't even tell me your name. I had to come and find you."

And there it was again that beautiful smile Aou'nung had hoped to see. "Well then, you did. Aou'nung defeater of the great Syaksyuk's would you know to help me get rid of this big fish?"

Now it was Aou'nung's time to smile as he pushed away the fish from both of the back into the water. "I know these fish," he says, still gasping for air a bit. " But I never expected them to be here, they belong on the islands of my home not in these sweet rivers."

"It's the RDA, they are disturbing Eywas's peace. Fish are where they're not supposed to be and people are fleeing their homes." now stopping to smile and looking at Aou'nung.

"I never thought of that." He replied, now feeling almost nervous, seeing her again all tall and mighty standing before him.

"You said, you are here because of a bet? Well then it is a dangerous bet, these days it is not safe in the forest for fish like you. Please, go home you see what can happen" Even the last bit of Aou'nungs confidence faded as he heard that but he wasn't about to leave. Not until he proved himself, that was his goal.

"Well then, you think a little fish like me can't prove himself worthy of knowing the name of a Syaksyuk like you? Then let me show you." even before she could react to being called a Syaksyuk Aou'nung pulled her close to him and threw himself into the running river. He knew he did more than just surprise her when he saw the astonished look on her face.

Again he couldn't help but smile.

The waters they were in now, although of an unfamiliar river, felt like a piece of the home had found him between all these strange plants and animals. Aou'nung was with that, more than ready to show her a part of his world.

"Aou'nung what are you trying to do ?? Do you want to drown me ?" She screamed at him as they both resurfaced, her gasping for air.

"Well, you never wanted to tell me your name. So, since a little fish out of water isn't probably worthy of hearing it, I wanted to show you what a fish in water can do. Even if it's not the ocean."

To his surprise, he heard her laugh out loud for the first time. "No my little fish. That is now what I meant. But go on." she grinned "Show me what makes you so special, son of the great olo'eyktan."

With the hand of her sentence, she quickly put her hand on his head and pushed him beneath the water's surface.

Satisfied with her approval, Aou'nung wasn't going to come up again that quickly.

He dove around her once or twice as he watched her head over the water follow him.

A bit along the river bed he spotted something. While there weren't any Ilus or coral reefs for him to show of to her he had discovered a little swarm of glowing fish in the distance.

Completely in his element again he gestured her to follow him but waited unsuccessfully for a response.

He reemerged from the water just to have a clear look at her happy but slightly confused face. "You are very quick underwater, that I must admit. But what was it that you wanted to show me Aou'nung? I couldn't hear a thing."

" This is the language of the Metkayina." he moaned. More annoyed by himself than her. How could he have forgotten the countless days he spent teaching Loak and Kiri just the simplest of things? But he knew it wasn't in vain. And it did also make quite an impression.

"I can teach you a few phrases if you like. But first follow me, as quietly as possible. Or just hang onto me if that's easier. " he exclaimed all proudly feeling a bit like his father once teaching him.

"Sure you can little fish, but I want to grab onto your tail no matter how nice you ask" she boldly countered his daydreams and brought him back to the river.

Sighing he dove back under the water with her right at his tail and although she was by far not as good or quiet of a swimmer as him, they did manage to reach the small swarm.

Aou'nung smiled at her astonished face underwater and signed just the word for fish to her.

Slowly and again and again he repeated it until she picked on and started to do it herself.

Looking incredibly proud of herself, Aou'nung pulled her back above the water worried she might forget to breathe as focused as she seemed.

"Look little fish !!! I can understand you." This time not talking to him but the swarm right in front of them. " You couldn't have been a better teacher Aou'nung. But what are those called? I've rarely seen them before."

"They are similar to your Sloapek," Aou'nung responded knowing that he at least managed to show off a bit. " Or pincer fish as the sky people call them. Small and harmless to us, but for little prey it can be quite deadly." Saying that he pinched his fingers together like two big claws and started wandering towards her.

"Although they look quite pretty, especially at night, just one bite and they got their prey caught forever." He says as he now furiously started to tickle her, water splashing all around them and both of them laughing.

Her laugh sounded beautiful to Aou'nung, like the sounds of those many colorful birds he saw on his first morning in the forest.

He couldn't remember if he ever heard anything more calming to him.

Hours passed for what felt like minutes to Aou'nung as they playfully swam and splashed through the river. Only when the sun started to set did they both realize how much time had passed.

"Well, I suppose you did you did keep your promise and continued watching over me. You even continued to hide your name from me."

" That is true little Aou'nung. But I realized I want more than that. Maybe I should have shown you our world from the beginning. Come on, now you can follow me.”

he didn't need to hear that twice. Without a word more spoken the two of them left the water.

Her wet hair gracefully wound along her shoulders and swung in the tact of her steps.

Over and over he was fascinated by this mysterious creature, like fire and rain her mood changed and he was willing to change with it just to be hers.

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