Chapter Text
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His chest vibrated like a drum, hot as the blood seeping into his wounded lung, spreading its numbing ache through every corner of his body. Blinded by the golden dawn of the eclipse, he believed himself to be floating for a few seconds, rising through the firmament beneath the luminous irises of the Great Mother.
Is this how his path would end? Without cold, without warmth, without anyone beside him.
Then, as the sky folded itself around Polyphemus like two blue arms meeting in an embrace with the ancestors, and the last of his dying breath silenced the world entirely, Neteyam exhaled for the final time.
And as life escaped through his lips, so too did the chains he had spent fifteen years building around himself. So he allowed himself, for the first time, to be honest.
"Let me be free. Let me shed these ropes and savor every second. Please, let me live honestly one last time, Great Mother."
Eywa works in mysterious ways.
He almost stepped back when he caught a glimpse of the playful smirk the Omatikaya wore on his face, eagerly waiting to answer the stupid doubts someone like Ao'nung might have.
So he pressed the shredded fish between his fingers, pressing his lips together, nervous as the frantic heartbeats hammering against his chest.
"You..." the sea seemed to freeze for a second, leaving him and his faltering voice alone in this battle. "You're not Neteyam, are you?"
Every accumulated month, sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of his mauri fighting against his own thoughts, compressed into a single point on the beach in broad daylight with the sun high over Awa'atlu. It crushed him like a wave dragging him against the rocks, for the moment he dared to lift his gaze, the bewildered grimace on the other's face paralyzed him.
"How did you..."
Ao'nung tensed, feeling the hiss run very deep through his skin and Neteyam's stupefied orbs biting into his turquoise eyes with impetuosity, forcing him to look.
"I thought I copied him perfectly..."
The war scar he had carried with such pride these past months lit up like a drop of sunlight, spreading across his blue skin like squid lanterns beneath the water, peeling away from his body as though it were another limb.
Ao'nung gasped, the fish carcass slipped from his hands and his stomach knotted into a million tangles.
Before he could scream, flee, or so much as react to such a visceral spectacle, the omatikaya's slender arms wrapped around his shoulders with gentleness. Neteyam let his forehead fall onto the other's broad shoulder, grazing the Metkayina's turquoise skin with his golden tears.
"I'm beggin you," he murmured, caressing his companion's soul with his voice. "Don't tell a soul."