Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Neteyam is bucked off of his ilu for the thirteenth time that day, and that justifies, in Aonung’s opinion, the loud laughter that ensues from his throat.

“You’re supposed to think while you ride, not just grab at the ilu!”

If Tsireya was here, she’d frown, but her baby-face would be nothing in comparison to the murderous look Neteyam sends him, which Aonung breezily ignores. He is still irritated at being given the chore of training the slow, useless forest children of the Omatikayan refugees — sons and daughters of the legendary Toruk Makto, who turned out to be a Dreamwalker, if the fingers on his hands were any indication.

“I know that,” Neteyam snarks, by way of saying that, hey, Aonung is being needlessly mean and if he pushes it further he might end up with a fresh bruise on his face.

“You still ride like a baby, though,” Aonung says. I'm up for the challenge and I think that you should go die in a ditch. "Everyone else had already left ages ago."

Neteyam glares at him, floating pathetically in the water. His ilu resurfaces moments later, used to Neteyam’s antics, and allows him to gracelessly climb it.

“We’ve been out for a full day,” Aonung says, angling his own ilu towards the shore. “I’m tired of you. We can continue tomorrow.”

“Uh huh,” Neteyam mutters and connects his queue to the ilu with excruciating gentleness. Before Aonung can stop him, he plunges into the depths once more.

“Moron!” Aonung yells after him, betrayed. The sun has been steadily dipping lower in the sky, painting the waves an ominous shade of blue. He searches through the murky water below and promises himself he'll be extra malicious tomorrow.

Neteyam resurfaces only a minute later, gasping for air, with his ilu nowhere in sight. It’s obvious, at least to Aonung, that they won’t make any more progress today. He resists the urge to steer his ilu into the Omatikayan boy and tells himself it's merely out of pity.

“Listen,” he says, opting for a more reasonable tone. Neteyam sputters and hopelessly calls for his ilu, ignoring him. “I am hungry. Your ilu is sick of you. I am sick of you.” Aonung frowns. “And it’s getting dark. Come on.”

“One more time,” Neteyam insists stubbornly. Aonung can’t help but begrudgingly admire his determination, even though the thought alone makes him gag. There is a dim beauty in this hardheadedness, the kind that reflects Aonung's own. He'd like to push it to the edge one day, but that day is not today. Today Aonung simply wants a warm meal and some gossip to share with Rotxo.

“Your ilu is gone, Neteyam. You’re not going to get any further today.”

Neteyam sends him a grim look. The bioluminescent freckles on his face light up his features with a weak, ethereal glow, the kind that would grow stronger once the sun sets completely. Aonung looks away before he can catch himself staring.

“Fine. If you like swimming so much, I'll let you get back to the shore on your own.” He clicks his tongue, angling his ilu towards the village and rides off.

Aonung grips the reins tightly and thinks bad thoughts at the Omatikayan family as Neteyam yells something at his retreating back. It doesn’t distract him from the fact that something sparked in him today, something fleeting and nauseating and giddy, as it has been consistently doing this entire week. He reaches shallow waters in minutes; Aonung dismantles, sending his ilu off with an apologetic pat, and wades towards the beach.

If he looks back, he would see a faint, flickering speck floating in the water. Neteyam can probably make it alone. Warm smells emit from the village, beckoning him with promises of roasted ‘angtsìk fish. Aonung climbs the docks but can’t seem to take another step.

The flickering speck grows closer. They haven’t been training in particularly deep waters, so it shouldn’t take very long for Neteyam to reach the village, with or without an ilu. Still, something in him complains weakly when he tries to leave, so he stays to fulfill the strange needs of his heart. His stomach growls. The discrepancies of the desires of his inner organs only irritate him further.

Cursed Omatikaya, Aonung thinks, settling down onto the damp wood of the dock. The sun disappears over the horizon, leaving the ocean as dark as the sky, with a single bobbing star in it. Did Omatikaya glow brighter than Metkayina? What made Neteyam so alluri—so beauti— so distracting?

He can’t do this.

(Was it the spots? Or was it the natural amiableness behind his tone, at least when Aonung wasn't busy making fun of him?)

Aonung desperately thinks of insults to use on Neteyam tomorrow. He can’t keep falling back on the classic 'idiot' and 'moron' anymore. Roxto will think he’s unoriginal. Tsireya would scold him; that said, she’s far more interested in Lo’ak. Aonung finds that sickening. At least he can entertain himself with Neteyam, who, by the way, has almost reached the shore already.

There aren’t any real predators within the reef, so Aonung doesn’t even know why he had bothered to stay, but seeing Neteyam crawl onto the beach in one piece fills him with tentative relief. Aonung stands up, eager to leave before Neteyam could notice him waiting. Good for him, actually. Aonung’s parents would have skinned him alive if something ever happened to him.

He eats fast and barely sleeps that night.

Neteyam is smarter than he seems, even as he continuously fails at riding his ilu. But he is a talented weaver — make no mistake, his fishing nets are only barely on par with Aonung’s own — and he climbs the mangrove trees in the surrounding jungle faster than anyone else. He's already found seven ripe rumaut fruits, even though they're not even in season yet, and he’s not completely hopeless at paddling a boat.

Boat is no ilu, though, and Neteyam is no Metkayina. Aonung is forced to keep an eye on him for another week without any significant progress.

Today, Tsireya has gathered all of the Omatikayan children to practice breathing. She makes them sit in a circle, cycling through breathing exercises so simple Aonung can do them in his sleep.

“Yes, just like that. Breathe in—” Tsireya’s voice cuts through the air, “—and now out. In, out. Good.”

It is revolting to see the way Lo’ak looks at Tsireya. Aonung wants to tell him to back off, but Tsireya’s barely passable attempts at flirting make it obvious she’ll kill him if he tries. He rolls his eyes discreetly, before catching Rotxo — Rotxo, of all people — sharing what can only be called a knowing glance with Neteyam.

Aonung flows through the rest of the exercises in silence, suddenly feeling excluded.

He isn’t sure who he’s jealous of, Neteyam or Rotxo, aware that Neteyam is a lot safer to envy. He isn't ready to come to terms with envying Rotxo and, actually, there's no reason to. In fact, dubbing the foreign emotion inside him as 'jealousy' already makes him bristle, so he simply leaves it unlabelled and instead considers methods of distancing himself from the Omatikayan children.

Calling them names is satisfying because it’s easy, and it’s not even really bullying (Aonung stamps down on the guilt) because it's deserved (he wrestles it into submission). Better yet, it keeps Rotxo away from them.

But Neteyam isn’t much of a freak. He has four fingers on each hand, unlike Lo’ak, and his seaweed baskets aren’t half bad. Even worse, he’s handsome. It is easy to be attracted to him, although 'attraction' is another word Aonung uses very loosely. His subconscious offers it to him when he isn’t paying attention.

He prods at Neteyam day and night, looking for any reason to hate him, but Neteyam seems to be generally immune even to the harshest of words.

The same cannot be said for his siblings.

Aonung ambushes Kiri (easy), wards off Lo’ak (too easy!), and ends up with a finger on his chest and Neteyam’s snarl in his face (terrifying). It’s like he materialized out of thin air the moment any of his little siblings has started whimpering. Aonung wants to despise that, he does, but it’s difficult when Neteyam is so, so close, and his eyes are charitably letting Aonung know he has messed up. Greatly.

Neteyam spits some empty threats (or so Aonung tells himself), gathers his family, and herds them away, and the whole ordeal is over in seconds.

Eywa must be testing him. Aonung makes it halfway through celebrating his emotional exile from Neteyam when that stupid idiot Lo’ak comes back and decks him in the face. Vaguely, over the sounds of the commotion, he can hear Neteyam curse in that disgustingly alluring mix of Na’vi and human, and doesn’t bother to pull his punches.

He takes two, three, four hits before anger bubbles up inside him and he yanks Lo’ak by his queue, pulling both of them to the ground. Rotxo dances in the corner of his vision, dragging Lo’ak off of him before suddenly getting slammed in the opposite direction. Aonung worries he might be seeing double until he realizes Neteyam has joined the fight.

It is a graceless scuffle, far from the glorified tales of battles his father has told him about, but it fills his blood with adrenaline all the same. He wrestles with Lo’ak with the desperation of a man needing to prove something and he makes great progress with deciding what that 'something' is. Someone is yelling into his ear — friend or foe, it no longer matters.

Aonung winds back his fist with the intent to decorate Lo’ak’s face, when Neteyam yanks at his elbow and heaves him off of his brother. Neteyam is stronger than he looks, Aonung decides, finding himself hopelessly attracted to him in the heat of the moment. It lasts about until Lo'ak jabs him in the ribs, hard, dropping Aonung out of his stupor. Lo’ak's laughter cuts off when he’s struck in the throat. Aonung pulls himself together.

He faces Neteyam, tail lashing in a confusing mix of excitement and anger, and then his father breaks up the fight, sending everyone tumbling back down to the ground.

Just like that, it’s over. Still, Aonung can’t tear his gaze away from Neteyam, bruised and battered, with flames dancing in his eyes. Son of Toruk Makto: fearless, aggravating, irresistible. And his existence alone is making Aonung want to drown something. Or dance, maybe. He isn't sure what's worse.

Later that day, Aonung sits alone in his Marui and waits for his father’s lecture. He has irrefutably severed any kinship there might’ve been between the Omatikayan and the Metkayinan children and, more importantly, between Neteyam and himself. It is what he wanted in the first place.

It doesn’t give him the satisfaction he needs. Aonung buries his face in his hands.

Chapter Text

It’s not like Aonung had meant to get Lo’ak almost killed by a stray akula. He had merely wanted to leave him outside the reef for an hour or two, then collect him all unharmed and in one piece. True, Aonung had sent Lo’ak to the akula breeding territories, but it wasn’t their breeding season; that made it reasonable in his mind. His side still hurt from when Lo’ak knocked the air out of him — a little bit of a scare, Aonung had thought, was exactly what Lo’ak deserved.

And when he and his friends fail to find him, over three hours later, he musters up the courage to confront Neteyam.

Not Jakesully, though. And not Neytiri. They would rip him apart, the fact that he’s the son of Olo’eyktan notwithstanding.

Neteyam, to his credit, remains reasonably calm given the situation; which is to say that he grabs Aonung by the shoulder and drags him to Toruk Makto anyway.

“Tell them what you told me.” Neteyam’s grip tightens painfully, as if Aonung would bolt any second.

“It was supposed to be just a prank,” Aonung begins, as Jakesully watches him expectantly. Sitting on the docks and interrupted mid-conversation with Kiri, he looks much gentler than Aonung has anticipated, but he knows that facade would shatter as soon as he breaks the news. Still, Aonung hopes for amnesty. “We were— we went to hunt beyond the reef and—”

Kiri glowers at him. He realises he never really did end up apologizing to her. Aonung opens and closes his mouth, and his voice fails him.

“Lo’ak’s missing,” Neteyam says, once it becomes evident Aonung has fallen into a stupor. There’s a certain charm to his solemness. Aonung would appreciate it a lot more if he wasn’t on the receiving end of it. “Been missing since you’ve last spoken to him.” 

“What?” There it is, the first startling note of the ferocious temper Jakesully is rumored to harbor, as he rises from the docks. Aonung suddenly feels very small. No wonder Neteyam’s glares seem so fierce — this is who he must’ve inherited them from. “It’s been hours since then. He’s not in the village?”

“I took him to hunt in the akula breeding grounds,” Aonung confesses quickly. Words spill from his mouth as Neteyam’s fingers dig into his skin. “It’s not their season, there shouldn’t be any — I was barely gone for an hour. He was supposed to be back ages ago.”

“Aonung abandoned him there,” Neteyam hisses.

“What?” Kiri mouths, soundlessly. Aonung had practically forgotten about her. He doesn’t dare to look at her father.

“We’re going to Tonowari, now.” Jakesully says and suddenly all of them are in motion. “Kiri, tell your mother to meet me in the Olo’eyktan’s Marui. Neteyam, you come with us.”

Kiri disappears in the blink of an eye. Aonung is allowed to watch her retreating back for half a moment longer before he’s hauled off in the direction of the Olo’eyktan’s home. Of his home. He struggles briefly against Neteyam’s grasp and is graciously released for his efforts. Aonung suspects his presence is non-negotiable. Alright. No problem. He’s totally fine facing his father in front of Toruk Makto, his mate, and their son.

Either Tonowari had felt them coming from the other end of the village or perhaps he had sensed Aonung’s mental distress signals, because, oddly enough, he’s already standing at the entrance of his Marui by the time they reach it.

“What is going on?” Tonowari asks, dwarfing everyone else in the clearing, Jakesully included. The wrath of his father is one of a special kind to Aonung. Tension gathers in the air.

“Lo’ak, my son, is gone,” Jakesully says. Both him and Neteyam turn expectant eyes on Aonung. Tonowari follows suit. It seems like only yesterday that he’s given Aonung a lecture about welcoming their guests.

“It was only meant to be a prank,” Aonung begins for the third time that day.

It works out in the end, at least for Lo’ak, who comes home unscathed and into the thankful arms of his family. It doesn’t work out for Aonung, who is left at Lo’ak’s mercy and now, apparently, owes Lo’ak for taking some blame off him. Tonowari doesn’t believe either of them, obviously.

Still, to Aonung’s distrustful surprise, Lo’ak isn’t as much of a menace as he had expected. It unsettles him.

“You used the trust of our guests against them,” Tonowari says later that evening, in the privacy of their Marui. He never yells, but Aonung can hear him pace. “And you misled the one you were supposed to guide.”

Aonung kneels on a soft woven rug, head down, and directs his eyes at the empty space in front of him, save for the occasional leg that wanders into his view.

The leg stops and stands in front of him. Aonung fights not to squirm under his father’s gaze.

“Have you got nothing to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry, father.” What can he say? That he didn’t mean to hurt Lo’ak, that he only wanted his family out of his life? For what? A selfish, pitiful inability to control—to behave—to deal with them?

“Do I deserve your apology?” Tonowari asks him.

Nn… Nnnnyes. Maybe. Aonung searches for the right answer. “Jakesully and his family do.”

“That’s right.” His father sighs, tired and suspenseful, and it’s somehow worse than if he had yelled at Aonung. “You will become Olo’eyktan one day, and that day is approaching quickly. Have I taught you nothing? A leader’s concern isn’t to prove his power, but to protect his people.”

“I know,” Aonung says meekly.

“You know and yet you do not listen,” Ronal cuts in. Instinctively, Aonung’s shoulders stiffen. She was the sterner parent. “Lo’ak may be infected with demon blood, but he is part of Awa’atlu now. Metkayina do not turn away those in need.”

Aonung keeps his mouth shut. Stuck on the recipient’s side of the tone his mother used for the gravest of misbehaviors, his chances of appeasing her are slim to none, for now.

“The Sky People are hunting Jakesully and his family, and you send his son beyond the reef, alone, where you yourself are forbidden to go,” Tonowari says. It is difficult to gauge his disappointment through his voice alone. Nevertheless, Aonung keeps his head down.

“I know,” Aonung says again and the words feel hollow.

His parents fall silent. Aonung knows they are communicating with their tense glances and taut lips and furrowed brows, through a language of hearts that he cannot decipher. He waits for his verdict.

“No diving for three days,” his mother says finally. “And a curfew at sundown.”

Aonung lifts his head, eyes wide. “But mom, the lessons—”

“The Omatikaya children have learned enough from you,” Tonowari cuts him off. “It could have been worse. Lo’ak has lied to save your skin in front of the clan—” he raises a hand, silencing Aonung before he could even defend himself, “—do not try fo fool me, Aonung, I can see through both of you.”

So much for Lo’ak’s help. Frankly, Aonung has been counting on his mother’s protection, but right now she was being awfully accepting of the newcomers for someone who didn’t want them in the village in the first place. At the same time, three days of punishment and a curfew seem rather insignificant in the face of the entire situation. Aonung suspects his mother had a hand in that and thanks her, mentally.

“You are also prohibited from going on hunts for two weeks, and you will use that time to run errands around the village instead,” Tonowari says, leaving no room for arguments.

Never mind. Aonung regrets jinxing it.

His father sighs, softer this time. The tension in the air dissipates, slowly. “Lo’ak is offering you his friendship, Aonung. Eywa does not provide many chances like that.”

Friendship might be too strong of a word, Aonung thinks. “I understand,” is what he says instead.

“Good.” His father gently places his palm on Aonung’s head. “I think we are done here, then. Go, now, and try to make amends with Lo’ak’s family.”

Endorsement from the eldest son will coax out the good will of the rest of the siblings, Aonung muses and looks for Neteyam.

Logically, Aonung should really go looking for Jakesully and Neytiri first, though he’d rather avoid them just a little bit longer. Toruk Makto may yet spare him, but Lo’ak’s mother seems to be on par with Aonung’s own. Her glares are much less controlled than her mate’s and Aonung wouldn’t want to test her motherly fury.

Perhaps he has been wrong about the origins of Neteyam’s spirit. More than half of it seems to come from Neytiri.

He finds Neteyam on a more secluded area of the beach, one that is surrounded by dense foliage, isolated from the rest of the island. Aonung used to come here more often as a child, until he became too big to squeeze through the bushes without looking like he was mauled by spearfish afterwards.

The thorns hurt, leaving pale lines in their wakes, but don’t break his skin. He enters the beach miraculously unharmed.

“Neteyam,” Aonung calls as soon as he sees the lone figure sitting just outside the shallow waters. The words that he’s been rehearsing die on his tongue.

Neteyam doesn’t move, but the instinctive flick of his ears tell Aonung he heard him. Aonung steps down to the shore, where Neteyam seems to be quite busy staring at the water, and doesn’t dare to invade his sightline.

“Neteyam, listen, I’m sorry. I came here to apologize for endangering your brother,” Aonung says and recoils. The words feel wrong and awkward in his mouth. “I already spoke to Lo’ak and I think he forgave me.” That detail is dubious at best, but it’s his lifeline. Aonung figures that if Lo’ak likes him, then Neteyam will like him. Eventually.

In the months that the Omatikayan family had stayed at Awa'atlu, Aonung had only seen Neteyam truly furious twice. Once, when Lo’ak went missing, and another time, when Aonung struck Lo’ak in the face. Both happened barely a day ago.

Seems like being on good terms with Lo’ak really was the answer to getting Neteyam’s approval.

“I’m sorry for fighting you and Lo’ak. And for making fun of Kiri,” Aonung continues, stepping a little closer and fishing around for his trump card. “You know, when I asked Lo’ak why he covered for me, he said it’s because he knows what it’s like to be a walking disappointment.”

Neteyam snorts quietly, eyes flickering from under his eyelashes to gaze up at Aonung’s face. Startled and infused with fresh hope, Aonung persists.

“And I don’t think you’re freaks or anything. I was just calling you that because I’m— I was—” He can’t let Neteyam know. Not now, and probably not ever. “I wanted Lo’ak to leave Tsireya alone. I was afraid he’d take her away.”

It’s only a tiny white lie. Equally embarrassing, infinitely less shameful than the cacophony of feelings that rise up in his chest whenever Neteyam looks at him.

“He kind of did in the end, though,” Neteyam says suddenly, jolting Aonung out of his worried haze.

His entire body floods with relief. He laughs weakly. “Yeah. I guess he did.”

“Lo’ak is a little stubborn and a lot stupid, but he’s a good person.” Neteyam’s tail shifts in the sand and moves away from where it had laid by his side. Aonung settles down in the freed spot next to him. “He wouldn’t hurt her, ever.”

“I know that now. Still, it was as if, like— if Rotxo started flirting with Kiri, you know?”

Neteyam grimaces and shakes his head. “Oh, Eywa forbid, please no.”

Suddenly urged to defend his best friend, Aonung amicably elbows Neteyam in the ribs. “Hey, he’s cool,” he says lightheartedly, with bated breath, “he’s like a brother to me. He could beat any of us, me included, in ilu-riding.”

“We’ll see.” Neteyam elbows him back, the corner of his lips twitching up. Not quite a smile just yet, but they’re getting there. “Watch, in two weeks, I’ll thrash him so hard he’d never want to see an ilu again.” He stands up, brushing the sand of his legs, and wades into the water.

“Doubt it,” Aonung says, forbidden from following him, feeling lighter all the same.

“How is Neteyam’s progress?” Aonung’s father asks four days later, after Aonung resumes his lessons with the Omatikayan children. His days now consist of hammering out their grammatical errors with the Metkayina underwater sign language, in addition to the many, many mindless chores he’s newly bound to.

Neither he nor Tsireya hold individual lessons with Jakesully’s children, though, so it is strange that his father is only asking about Neteyam.

“He’s improving,” Aonung says truthfully, “but he’s still terrible. Barely knows how to ride an ilu and keeps forgetting every sign that we teach him. Marginally better than his brother, though.”

“You sound fond,” his father says gently, silencing Aonung for a few indignant, conflicted moments.

“What?” Aonung huffs, then, figuring honesty was always the better option with the Olo'eyktan, decides the lack of judgement in his father’s tone must mean something. “It’s not intentional.”

“It never is,” his dad agrees, not unkindly, and that’s that.

Aonung finds peace.

Chapter Text

It’s so revoltingly sentimental to obsess over someone’s eyes, but in Aonung’s defense, the Metkayina's lack of variation in color makes any odd attribute seem charmingly exotic. Neteyam’s warm, amber gaze coaxes saccharine thoughts out of him. Ones of the most repulsive kind, too.

He… doesn’t find shame in his infatuation anymore. That’s not to say he isn’t embarrassed about it; these are two very different things. Aonung wouldn’t go out advertising his crush (the word itself makes him shudder, awkward and troublesome), much less confess to Neteyam in that tearful, miserable manner that all the girls in the village seem to love. Perhaps it works for them, but Aonung is no besotted girl. Mawkish romance stories make him sick.

What he means is that Neteyam is perfectly acceptable to adore. Aonung even prides himself on having such great taste. Tsireya, on the other hand, seems busy fawning over Lo’ak’s terrible jokes. Their clumsy attempts at flirting irritate Aonung.

In his professional opinion, Aonung can do better. He simply chooses not to.

All in all, life is good. Aonung’s mother glares less and his father smiles more. The rest of Awa’atlu follow in their wake. In return, the Omatikayan family lowers their guard and Neteyam stops trying to shadow his siblings as much, which gives ample opportunity for Aonung to catch him alone.

Opportunities that he keeps missing, it seems. That's perfectly fine, Aonung thinks bitterly. He’s content watching Neteyam from afar and occasionally nearby, during their lessons. It’s not like he has time for anything more.

Aonung teaches in the mornings and afternoons, and runs errands in the remaining hours. Lessons steadily increase in length, seeping into his chore time, as the Omatikayan siblings absorb more knowledge. Normally he wouldn’t complain, but it leaves him rather exhausted and without any opportunity to socialize. Slowly, Aonung discovers the genius of his father’s punishment.

On the upside, he sleeps much better now.

Thankfully, the Olo’eyktan’s and the Tsahik’s acceptance of Jakesully’s family encourages other Metkayinan children to offer their aid as tutors. It alleviates Aonung’s schedule, at least a little. They’re not perfect, obviously, and most of them don’t know the intricate dynamics of the group like Aonung does, but they’re passable.

“What ‘intricate dynamics’?” Rotxo asks him one day, after Aonung had accidentally let his thoughts slip. They sit on the beach, sunbathing on the sand, as he viciously tries to untangle a salvageable fishing net. “Between you, me, and Tsireya, you care the least about ‘dynamics’. You’re like, the meanest one.”

“Was,” Aonung corrects him, already regretting saying anything in the first place. He attacks the knots in the net with renewed vigor. “I don’t make fun of them anymore. You do, though.”

“It’s called being friendly,” Rotxo defends himself.

He hasn’t received as big of a lecture as Aonung did for misleading Lo’ak, but over time has mellowed out towards Jakesully’s children. Better yet, he’s been trying to make friends with Kiri. Aonung graciously turns a blind eye and doesn’t tell Neteyam about it.

Aonung huffs, raising his brows. “I think it’s called bullying.”

“People do it out of affection,” Rotxo says, effectively countering him. “Happens all the time.”

“Oh yeah?" Aonung challenges, finally looking up from his fishing net. His fingers ache, but he can’t give up just yet. The crankiest village elder has given it to him, and he’d rather drown than return defeated. "When?"

“Whenever you open your stupid mouth,” Rotxo says and tackles him head-on.

They wrestle in the sand briefly, net discarded. Aonung tries and fails to put him in a headlock, as Rotxo curls a finger inside of his cheek and pulls to the left, hard. Getting fish-hooked was the worst. Aonung parts his jaws, mindful of his teeth — he wouldn't want to bite the incessant annoyance of a friend that Rotxo is, no matter how many headaches he gave him — and sticks his tongue out in a gross, deliberate motion.

“You licked me!” Rotxo pulls his hand back in horror. He's laughing, even though it sounds partly indignant. Things are easy like that with Rotxo, unlike how they are with certain other people.

“You hooked me!” Aonung retorts, pressing his lips together to force back his grin. They eye each other for a little longer, before Aonung strikes, moving behind Rotxo, and finally gets him in that headlock.

Rotxo taps his arm repeatedly, admitting defeat. Aonung releases him. Joy blooms unsteadily in his chest and the leftover giddiness makes everything around them seem vaguely humorous. He searches blindly for his discarded fishing net; with his luck, it probably got even more tangled. Aonung realizes he doesn’t care.

“I’m still glad,” Rotxo wheezes as he lies in the sand, “that Ewiwal and Anurai are helping us out. It’s been hard without Tsireya.”

Aonung’s spirits sink a little. So he’s not the only one bothered by her absence. Ever since Lo’ak’s sign language skills have soared immensely, Tsireya had started whisking him away for individual lessons almost every day. It is better for learning, is what she tells the others. Nobody believes her.

It’s true, though, that Lo’ak has been mastering the Metkayinan sign language at alarming speeds. Aonung suspects it’s because he still sneaks out to see Payakan, but refrains from saying anything. His rift with Lo’ak has just started healing and he isn't planning on ruining it. Besides, extra practice helps Lo’ak learn faster and by extension keeps him off Aonung’s back. It’s not as big of a tragedy.

It is, however, a nuisance to try to keep order in the lessons without Tsireya's calming presence. Aonung himself has trouble staying focused, not when Kiri constantly disappears in the coral reef and Rotxo keeps distracting him with his jokes and Neteyam—

And Neteyam, bless the bastard, has the nerve to show up to class. Neteyam, with his glowing freckles and dainty forearms and wide-set shoulders, who acts as if he and Aonung were meant to be friends from the beginning, inconsiderately heedless of the havoc he wreaks with every single touch — Neteyam, Aonung has learned, is the most tactile out of all his siblings, and that might just kill him.

There's something curious, though, in the way that Neteyam never smacks him upside his head like he does constantly with Lo'ak. Aonung determinedly tries not to think too hard about it.

“Sure,” Aonung says just for the sake of replying, and pulls at his fishing net fruitlessly. It is well-crafted, strong and unyielding, and that only makes his job harder. Still, Aonung refuses to cut at it with a knife.

“I wish she was helping the rest of us, too. Not just Lo’ak,” Rotxo continues distastefully. “I can’t get anything through Neteyam’s thick skull. He’s worse than Tuk.”

Now that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Aonung reckons he must be still angry with Neteyam for beating him into the ground during their squabble over a week ago. Mentioning it would only irritate Rotxo, though, so he holds his tongue behind his teeth and kindly doesn’t voice his suspicions.

Rotxo has a point, though. Neteyam has been steadily improving in every field but sign language, a domain his own brother has already almost conquered. He keeps forgetting new vocabulary, misuses the language, and worst of all, doesn’t like to sign. His struggle comes as a surprise after his early successes with diving and weaving, and Aonung simply doesn’t know how to help him.

“Maybe I should do one-on-one lessons with him,” he muses, making Rotxo sit up.

“What, like Tsireya and Lo’ak?” Rotxo asks, his voice containing neither judgment nor implication, and yet the natural connotations of his question make Aonung fidget, regardless of how unintentional they may be.

He coughs, pretending to be very focused on his net. “Doubt she’s actually teaching him anything,” Aonung says, eliciting a chuckle out of his friend. It gives him courage. “But yes.”

Rotxo hums. “Well, if you’re volunteering... I suppose I can’t stop you. Just don’t stab me in the back and go off frolicking like certain others did. I can’t handle Kiri and Tuk on my own.”

“I won’t,” Aonung says, making a show of rolling his eyes and ignoring the foreign churn of his stomach. “And anyway, it’s not like anybody forced you to help us. You just tagged along uninvited.”

“Too bad that it’s too late to kick me out.” Rotxo grins and yanks the fishing net out of Aonung’s hands, quickly unraveling a tough knot that’s been getting on Aonung’s nerves. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of Tuk and Kiri tomorrow and you can go and beat some sense into your favorite student.”

Aonung sends him a grateful look. “What would I ever do without you?”

“Literally nothing.” Rotxo starts untying the remaining knots. “But you’re welcome.”

They don’t have to practice signing underwater, but Tsireya had once insisted that it’s good for experience and doubles as breathing training. Aonung is a fan of finishing work quickly, even if it means he has to multitask, so he doesn’t argue.

He sits with Neteyam in the seawall pools, where the water is shallow enough that taking a breath is a matter of standing up and sitting back down. It is a little bit crowded, but Neteyam doesn’t seem to mind, so Aonung doesn’t either. At least he tries not to.

And what do you call these? Aonung signs, pointing at his eyes.

Stomach, Neteyam signs confidently and earns a light smack to his temple. Aonung had taken great care in putting little to no force behind it and is graciously rewarded with Neteyam’s lopsided grin. A familiar feeling creeps into his chest: satisfaction laced with chagrin. He’s torn between joy and misery. He quickly looks away.

Eyes, Aonung signs as he avoids Neteyam’s gaze, who would probably appreciate the irony if he'd ever notice. Eyes, eyes, eyes, he repeats, just to clarify.

Eyes, Neteyam agrees.

They've been going at a rather leisurely pace, to say the least. Aonung admires Neteyam’s diligence but cannot fathom how he keeps forgetting every fourth word they learn. Still, his individualistic approach allows him to tailor the lesson to Neteyam’s needs, something that group classes couldn’t do. The progress is there, even though it's slow. Inklings of pride rise up in him; he can’t wait to brag to Rotxo.

Neteyam taps his shoulder and points up, despite having replenished his oxygen barely a minute ago. Before Aonung can demand an explanation, he rises to the surface. Eager to avoid being left alone and at eye level with Neteyam’s legs, Aonung follows.

“What?” he asks, poking his head out of the water.

“I can’t do this,” Neteyam says. He sounds slightly out of breath. “My head is too full.”

“We’ve been practicing for less than an hour,” Aonung says, trying to sound offended. In truth, rehearsing vocabulary over and over again has been taking a toll on him as well. Their little break is a welcome distraction, as are Neteyam’s beads, glowing in the sunlight and projecting dancing rays onto his shoulders. Has Eywa meant to make a person so beautiful, or was Aonung simply being a teenage idiot? The latter, probably.

Neteyam looks down at the water. “I know, and I’m sorry.” He sounds guilty. “I would learn faster if we actually used the language. You know, in a conversation. I think I’m fluent enough.”

“Fluent is a rather big word,” Aonung muses. He considers it. “Just say you want to gossip.”

“Fine, I’d like to gossip,” Neteyam agrees, as if to only appease him, and rolls his eyes in the same way Rotxo does when Aonung says something stupid (with so much fondness and familiarity that Aonung could break right then and there). “Anything for you.”

“You’re far too kind,” Aonung says, and his tone is as dry as is his throat. He grows quite interested in the horizon line behind Neteyam’s shoulders. "We can try, but I warned you: you won't be able to keep up."

"I think I'm full of surprises," Neteyam disagrees, before taking a deep breath disappearing back underwater.

Now Aonung just has to prove him wrong.

Hello, Neteyam signs as they return to the floor of the seawall pool. How are you?

So, that’s his definition of a conversation. It’s reasonable, considering his limited lexicon, and easy meat for any provocateur. Yet, he reminds himself not to snark just yet; that can be saved for the future, when he’s established enough charm that his words sound teasing, not scathing, and when sitting next to Neteyam won’t cause him so much silent stress. Maybe Aonung really is a pathetic, besotted girl.

I’m good, Aonung signs back with practiced motion, trying to ease his sudden spike in nervousness. What about you?

Neteyam falters, brows knitting together. To Aonung’s great surprise, he replies with a decent, albeit unorthodox, I like this day.

Why? Aonung prompts, making Neteyam frown in concentration and mouth the words he wants to sign, as if that would help him remember. Perhaps they should’ve continued practicing vocabulary.

It’s good, Neteyam signs lamely. The sea is…

What? Aonung asks, after moments pass with no response.

Neteyam shoots him a pained look. The sea is a friend, he signs and, wow, Aonung’s actually kind of impressed. His lips twitch up, barely.

Yep, Aonung signs, it’s pretty mild today. Slow currents and all — Tuk’s probably having fun diving. Kiri too, since she likes to ogle the fish so much. I bet Rotxo’s real angry right now. He cycles through the motions as fast as possible.

The frightened look on Neteyam’s face is enough to make Aonung laugh underwater.

Asshole, Neteyam signs and Aonung doesn't remember teaching him that, but the grin refuses to leave his face nonetheless. He fights to keep the precious air in his lungs.

Yep. He shrugs good-naturedly. That’s me.

Rotxo, Neteyam signs slowly, as he spells out each letter. Angry?

Ah. Aonung has not expected him to catch any of that. Because, Aonung starts and wavers, desperately searching for an excuse. He keeps digging himself into holes.  He… doesn’t like…

Kiri? Neteyam interrupts, his eyes defensive and guarded.

No, no, of course not. Aonung shakes his head quickly. Siccing Neteyam on his best friend is the last thing Aonung wants, even though it would probably be the funniest thing ever. Rotxo would behead him. He’s worried… He’s scared that I’ll abandon him.

Abandon? Neteyam copies the gesture uncertainly.

Leave. Aonung mouths the word for extra clarification and pretends not to care when Neteyam watches his lips carefully. It isn't like that, it's really not. He doesn’t like me teaching like this. He gestures to the water around them. The pause stretches. Aonung furrows his brows, lips curling in an uncertain smile. What?

Rotxo is scared because us are friends? Neteyam signs and Aonung can’t actually tell if it’s a question or a statement, only that it’s sudden enough to leave him dumbfounded. His hands still.

We, not us, Aonung finally corrects him. But sure. Whatever.

In hindsight, it’s stupid to consider them anything but. Aonung has never thought of Neteyam as an enemy, only as a stranger, and then as a vaguely hostile inconvenience. A troublesome acquaintance, perhaps, and the brother of a boy that Aonung put in danger, and occasionally, when his thoughts drift away from him, the root of the tangled mess of emotions underneath Aonung’s rib cage.

‘Friends’ sounds a lot better, but ‘the bane of Aonung’s existence’ is far more accurate.

Neteyam playfully smacks his shoulder. It’s okay. I can infatuate you, he signs and then has the audacity to smile.

Aonung sputters and resurfaces moments later.

“What?” he croaks, once Neteyam reappears in front of him, disoriented. It’s been some time since he’d choked like that. Aonung is almost an adult; he should know how to hold his breath underwater.

“What?” Neteyam repeats after him, and he’s either a good actor or genuinely taken aback. “What happened?”

“You just— you just said—”

“Oh,” Neteyam says, making both of them fall silent. Aonung gets the feeling he’s being judged. “You know that was a joke, right? I won’t actually fight you or anything.”

“Huh?” Aonung opens and closes his mouth, before everything makes sense again. Curse Neteyam’s stupid, lousy sign language. It’s such a beginner's mistake to confuse the signs for ‘fight’ and ‘infatuate’, but with the progress Neteyam’s been making, Aonung thought he’d know better. His heart slowly settles back into his chest. “Idiot, this is what ‘fight’ looks like.” He rubs his fist into his palm in a circular pattern. “You did it wrong, it’s supposed to go in the other direction.”

“Oh. I thought you were scared I’d kick your ass again.” Neteyam is embarrassed, Aonung can tell, but can’t hold it against him. His bashful eyes uproot something in him and Aonung laughs, loud and clear, if only to ease his nerves.

“You only beat Rotxo and Tìsop and they’re both smaller than me. I could fight you,” Aonung argues, grateful for the change in topic.

“I’d like to see you try,” Neteyam challenges, thankfully not offended. The defiant notes in his voice fizzle out and he rubs the back of his neck, hesitant. Aonung allows himself to stare, under the cover of an expectant gaze. “So, um, what did I say instead?”

“Oh, nothing. Not important,” Aonung lies through his teeth. The truth would only make things weird between them and he can’t let that happen, not after the painstaking journey of trying to mend their relationship. “We should get back to the lesson.”

"Okay," Neteyam releases the subject easily, as if sensing Aonung's distress. Aonung hides his surprise, only sends him a grateful look, before they both sink back down underwater.

The rest of their signed conversation flows smoothly enough that Neteyam seems to forget about the entire incident by the time they’re done. Aonung thanks Eywa, covertly trying to control the pandemonium in his head.

It is only after they return to the village, mentally exhausted but with a sense of accomplishment, that Neteyam catches Aonung’s shoulder, as if he would bolt otherwise. Something about the scene feels amusingly familiar. Aonung's bruises have healed long ago, and yet his skin tingles at the touch.

“Listen,” Neteyam begins as they stand in shallow waters, fully in the view of any passerby. It bothers Aonung for no apparent reason. “Thanks for helping me out today. I know I’m kind of dense sometimes.”

“No problem,” Aonung says carefully. Neteyam isn’t much shorter than him, but the difference makes itself somehow more evident when they stand next to each other like that. It soothes Aonung’s wounded pride, a little. It also allures him, a lot. Way more than it should. “It’s kind of my job.”

“Right,” Neteyam says, with poorly veiled emphasis that suggests he'd wanted to say more. Worse, he releases Aonung, leaving the space his hand had occupied strangely empty and yearning to be filled again. Regret fills Aonung's throat.

“If it really helps you, we can do this more often,” he offers and drinks in the way Neteyam smiles at him. “Don’t worry about Rotxo.”

“I'd like that," Neteyam says warmly, before Tuk calls his name from their Marui. Her little silhouette jumps up and down on the docks. Aonung sighs noiselessly. All good things must come to an end, he concludes, even as Neteyam pats his shoulder in farewell and sends the tingling feeling back up his arm. "Mom's gonna be mad if I don't help her out with dinner." He sounds sheepish.

"Just go, Neteyam," Aonung says, shaking his head in mock annoyance. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Deal." Neteyam's little dots seem to grow brighter on his skin. He waves at Aonung as they part, ultimately unaware of how big of a headache he causes him.

And yet, Aonung cannot seem to get enough of him.

Chapter Text

Neteyam plagues him even in his dreams.

Aonung sits on an abandoned beach, tangled in a nightmare of knots and threads and sore fingers. Time is running out, he feels it in the churn of his stomach. Aonung picks at the never-ending twine. He is supposed to weave into a fishing net and he isn’t sure why, only that he must hurry — the inexplicable urgency scares him. Vaguely, as if he’s watching himself in third person, he is aware this is a dream.

A jarring cacophony of noises assaults him before he can even shakily make the first knot. He covers his ears in hopes of drowning out the screeching. It doesn’t help. Pressure expands in his skull, projecting images of exploding heads; the pain is absent, but the dread is there. He can’t think. The twine loops around his legs, digging into skin and flesh and bone and blood — someone is yelling next to him.

“Aonung?”

The chaos silences itself. Feeling rushes back into Aonung’s legs as the twine releases its vicious grip. He looks up, cautiously, and meets a steady amber gaze.

Neteyam sits before him, legs crossed and close enough to touch. He is a bit like an outline — Aonung knows that it’s him, even though his face seems to blur and distort. It makes perfect sense in the moment, so he doesn’t question it.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Aonung says resentfully, although he doesn’t mean to. It just sort of slips out. There is something dangerously intimate about their encounter, regardless of its artificiality. This isn’t one of Aonung’s recurring nightmares.

“Why not?” Neteyam asks, with no apparent intent to leave, and pulls at the discarded twine at Aonung’s feet.

He shakes his head, trying to focus. “Because…” The twine shrinks, or perhaps it simply stops looping into infinity. Neteyam deftly ties each individual knot. His hands move quickly and gracefully, and his presence eases Aonung’s agitation. Overcome with deja vu — somebody has done something like that for him before — Aonung struggles to find an answer. “I’m not sure.”

“Then can I stay?” He seems to solidify, less like a scattered reflection in the water and more real. Aonung deftly ignores the warning bells going off in the back of his mind.

“Fine,” Aonung agrees as the net obediently weaves itself in Neteyam’s palms. Favoritism, he thinks grumpily.

Neteyam braids the twine with expert accuracy, taming thousands upon thousands of knots in only a few seconds. Or maybe it only seems like that, because Aonung blinks and the net is there, whole, finished. Even his own mind seems to favor Neteyam, who carefully folds the net so it doesn’t tangle and pushes it in Aonung’s hands. They hold it, together. You keep the fear away, Aonung thinks on impulse, and only realizes he has voiced it when Neteyam’s eyes light up.

“Good. I’m glad,” Neteyam says and shifts closer. Their hands slot together perfectly. “I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

It’s just a dream, it’s a dream. It means nothing. Neteyam looks so earnest, so sincere; he chips away at Aonung, leaving him a mess of fragments, directionless. Aonung can’t bring himself to blame him.

“What if you happen?” Aonung blurts out.

Neteyam studies him. The embarrassment barely registers against the warmth of his hand, and his golden eyes and his glowing freckles and his pretty beads. Aonung realizes that he can see him clearly, every detail rendered.

“Would you let me?” Neteyam asks.

“Yes,” Aonung says without missing a beat, and reckons it’s a small price to pay to make Neteyam smile like that.

“I suppose that’s all right, then,” Neteyam says and leans in.

Aonung barely keeps his balance as he pitches forward, bringing their faces closer. He can’t tell if Neteyam’s breathing, if he’s breathing. He studies the constellations of Neteyam’s face before they inevitably blur together, as he—

Aonung wakes up.

It is dark, but he can hear the chirping of the early birds and knows that dawn must be approaching fast. It doesn’t distract him from the terror closing in on his mind, heart racing, throat tightening, completely and utterly destroying him. He locks his fingers in his hair and pulls, hard, just to snap himself out of it. Aonung sits up and stares at the sleeping bodies around him, hollow-eyed.

It has been a dream. He had known that and yet he hasn’t stopped it. Hasn't even retaliated. Guilt fills him to the brim.

The image of Neteyam’s lips, so close, burns itself into his mind. He forces himself to stop replaying it. Aonung’s skin tingles from the phantom touch of a boy sleeping on the other side of the village, unaware and blissfully ignorant of the things he does to him. Neteyam, or rather the Neteyam of his dreams — the words make Aonung cringe — is kind and gentle and lovestruck and real Neteyam is nothing like that.

He is, sort of. At least, he’s very close, and maybe even almost identical — but, ultimately, very different people. Dream Neteyam is not real Neteyam. What was dream Neteyam doing there, anyway? Aonung can’t even remember anymore. It’s gone. Out of his mi—

Kissing me, Aonung’s brain supplies unhelpfully.

Betrayed, Aonung buries his face in his hands. He feels as if he’s violated their friendship. Crossed some invisible line, maybe. He cycles through half a dozen different apologies despite the fact that his mind is a private, though a disorderly place. Neteyam is probably snoring safe and sound in his stupid Marui, dreaming of stupid things. None of which are as stupid as Aonung’s.

He pushes himself to his feet. There is still some time before he has to rise, but Aonung can’t fathom going back to sleep. He carefully steps around his sleeping family and doesn’t bother taking anything more than his knife and a basket as he exits his Marui.

There are other people awake in the village. Aonung gingerly avoids all of them, heading towards the ocean. He may as well get started on his chores early. He bobs with practiced ease on the bouncy pathways above the shore and steps out on the docks, feet thumping quietly over the worn wood. He dives into the waves below.

The water is always cold in the mornings. The shock of it energizes him and he swims back to the surface after gingerly stretching around on the sandy ocean floor. Aonung calls for his ilu, far enough from the village to disturb any Metkayina, before his eyes catch movement on the docks.

Neteyam emerges from the back entrance of his marui, tools in hand, wooden bowl at his side. He doesn’t spot Aonung — in fact, he barely looks at the ocean — before he settles down on his little dock and, bathing in the early-morning sun, starts carving something. Or perhaps polishing. Aonung can’t tell and doesn’t care. Neteyam may as well be the last person he’d like to see right now.

His ilu startles him, greeting him with a click and a coo, and Aonung has to hurriedly shush her. He clambers on, gently connecting their queues, and she quietens down. He knows she feels his worry. He also knows he’d just stamped out her playfulness. Aonung promises himself to make it up to her later, but before he can dive, a different figure invites itself onto Neteyam’s dock.

It’s Anurai, one of the younger mentors that sometimes helps out with Aonung’s and Tsireya’s lessons. What is he doing there? Aonung thinks indignantly. It’s far too early for visitors, especially uninvited ones. Neteyam seems to share his displeasure, for he greets Anurai a tad stiffly, barely looking up from his work. Anurai is younger than Tsireya and still only learning to read people, so the hints fly right over his head. Instead, he eagerly settles down on the dock. Aonung can almost feel Neteyam’s chagrin.

No matter. He’s come here to scavenge for scallops, not gawk at other people. Neteyam is simply too hard-working to wake up late and too polite to chase away intruders. He’s Aonung’s polar opposite and, in contrast, seems to actually know what he’s doing with his life. Most of the time. In any case, he’s probably busy with all the people he needs to care for and he would not appreciate Aonung’s feeble advances. End of.

Has Neteyam ever dreamed of him, too?

Stupid question. Aonung urges his ilu around and dives underwater.

He comes home later that day with a basket full of scallops and earns warm praise from his mother, who has grown particularly fond of them. With his spirits lifted, Aonung goes to find Rotxo. The lessons are supposed to start in the afternoon today, or at least whenever Tsireya calls them, making Aonung terribly grateful for the little break that he’s been granted.

He finds Rotxo in his Marui, cleaning fish. Aonung steps inside with practiced ease; he’s been around too many times to ask for permission. This pod is like a second home to him.

“Hey,” Rotxo greets, eagerly dumping the half-cleaned fish back into the bowl with the rest of them. It seems that he’s only just started. “Dad’s making me do chores on my only day off.”

“Want me to rescue you?” Aonung asks, but not before taking a cautionary look inside the pod. Rotxo’s father, Aoti, has a nasty habit of trying to ‘fit in’ with the youth. Unfortunately, that habit includes pranks. Aonung loves him like an uncle, of course, but only when Aoti isn’t waiting to jump him from behind every corner.

“And feed your ever-growing ego? No thanks.” Rotxo grins, waving his knife at Aonung. “Don’t come any closer, I’m dangerous.”

“To whom, the dead fish?” Aonung scoffs, offering Rotxo his hand and pulling him up. Rotxo intuitively points the knife away from them. “How much time have you got?”

Rotxo shrugs. “Don’t know. Dad’s out trying his new and improved crab trap. Could be either an hour or three days, depending how well it works.”

Aoti is a tinkerer. He’s been odd enough even before he met his mate, according to Aonung’s parents, and he had only become odder after her death, according to Aoti himself. Aonung doesn’t remember Rotxo’s mother very well, or at least, not her face. Her hands are present in some of his earliest memories, though, and while he doesn’t remember her funeral either, he remembers young Rotxo. And he remembers wrestling with him, and the laughter, and the ensuing tears, and being reprimanded very, very often.

Rotxo exists as an innate part of his childhood. And he’ll retain this role through Aonung's adulthood as well. Aonung doesn't doubt it in the slightest.

“What’s your guess?” Aonung asks Rotxo. “I don’t get many breaks anymore and I really want to spend it doing something fun for once.”

“Two hours at most.” Rotxo says as he hides the uncleaned fish and puts away his knives. “He’s testing out a new version. Probably gonna come back with a bunch of squids instead.”

Aoti is a skilled hunter and a marvelous tattooist, but his real talents lie in the tiny contraptions that he meticulously builds and paints. Sometimes they work. Most of the time they don’t. He’s made a dozen different variations of crab traps so far, each one loyally and consistently failing him.

He’s one of Tonowari’s closest friends, though, so Aonung is happy for him. Aonung still owns the tiny akula that Aoti had carved out of driftwood and given to him as a birthday present, years prior.

“Good enough for me,” Aonung says and impatiently herds Rotxo out of his Marui.

Rotxo sends him a dirty look. He’s shorter than Aonung (just like every other kid in the village is, Aonung thinks gleefully), but he’s stocky. Aonung has been in enough squabbles with him to know that Rotxo punches with the strength of a nalutsa, even though to do that he must first struggle to reach the recipient's face.

Aonung means that affectionately, of course. At least, that’s what he tells Rotxo to avoid getting jabbed in the throat.

They delve into meaningless banter as they walk, unhurried, towards Aonung’s favorite beach. It’s the one that he’s grown out of, and the one where he had apologized to Neteyam, and also the one where he’s skinned himself countless times. Most importantly, it’s the one that the older Metkayina don’t tend to visit. Aonung can’t wait to sink into the warm sand and inevitably take a pleasant nap.

“Neteyam was asking for you this morning,” Rotxo says casually, without any warning.

Aonung’s breath catches in his throat. He stares directly ahead and fights to keep his voice even. “What did he say?”

“Not much. He was just looking for you,” Rotxo continues. Aonung glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “Apparently it was important enough to wake me up.”

Aonung furrows his brow. “Was he in your Marui?” All children in Awa'atlu know that Rotxo is a late riser and, more importantly, that he gets rather ill-tempered when disturbed from his beloved sleep. He’s a bit like Aonung that way, though lately Aonung hasn’t been getting much sleep anyway.

“Yep,” Rotxo snarks. “I open my eyes on a beautiful, sunny day, and the first thing I see is his ugly mug. Morning ruined.”

“A tragedy.”

“Exactly. He left before I could throttle him.” Rotxo makes grabbing motions with his palms. “When I see him today, Eywa help him…”

“Why do you hate him so much?” Aonung asks suddenly, and he has both meant and not meant to say that aloud. But the words are out. He finds that he doesn't regret them all that much. He's always been honest, or at least straightforward, with Rotxo. It didn’t feel right to keep things from him.

“Me?” Rotxo asks incredulously, as if that’s the stupidest thing Aonung has said that day. Aonung holds his ground. He isn’t wrong all that often, at least not when it comes to his best friend. “I don’t hate Neteyam. We’re friends.”

“But you just said…” Aonung trails off. “You always butt heads with him. Just yesterday you pushed him off his ilu.”

“I do that to you too, don’t I?” Rotxo argues and Aonung, at loss for words, quickly shuts his mouth. “Why are you confused about that?”

He hasn’t considered that. For a brief, shameful moment, he wonders if Rotxo is lying — Aonung vigorously shakes off that thought. Rotxo is one of the few precious people left that would never sugarcoat things to him. It’s one of the reasons Aonung appreciates him so much.

“I thought you were still mad at Neteyam,” Aonung admits, “for kicking your ass that time.”

Rotxo sends him a surprised look. “I was never mad at him. Because he didn’t kick my ass. I totally destroyed him.” He bares his teeth in a faux display of aggression, making Aonung smile slightly. But he isn’t done.

“You hate working with him, though," Aonung insists, well aware that he should probably just let it go at this point. He can’t seem to stop. "You said he had a thick skull.”

“I said I couldn’t get anything through his thick skull,” Rotxo says, quirking his brows at Aonung and giving him a light jab in the shoulder. “It’s not like that’s not true. He always forgets every sign I teach him. Last time he insisted that the coral reef should learn to fly.” Rotxo snorts and rolls his eyes.

“So you were never angry?”

Rotxo considers it. “I was, for a little, but only because he kneed me in the guts. Thankfully, being friends with you has taught me to forgive and forget very quickly—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aonung bristles.

“—and I guess if he has such a noble and honorable warrior eagerly protecting him, I might as well accept his non-existent apology.” Rotxo’s mouth stretches into a thin, pleased grin. Aonung looks away and knows it grows wider. Rotxo pats him on the back with a brief chuckle. “I can’t believe you care this much.” It's a little impressive and a lot terrifying how quickly — and how confidently — he catches on.

Aonung should feel at least somewhat embarrassed, but there’s only relief. Any more of it and he'd probably turn dizzy. A weight has been taken off his shoulders and it gets just a little bit easier to breathe — he isn’t used to keeping things to himself for that long. His father knows, of course, but there is a tiny and yet immensely significant difference between complaining about Neteyam to Tonowari and shamelessly discussing Neteyam with Rotxo. In fact, it's enough for Aonung to accept Rotxo's teasing with no complaints.

“I can’t believe it, either,” Aonung grumbles. It’s enough confirmation for Rotxo, who slaps him on the back one more time for good measure and practically frolics the rest of the way to the beach.

“I guess now I actually gotta start tolerating Neteyam,” Rotxo jokes, as they climb through the thorns. He slips in easily, unscathed. Aonung envies him; the brambles prickle him as he follows. “What will our parents do? They all thought you were in love with me. How will I become Olo'eyktan now?” Rotxo tugs at Aonung's forearms, shaking them around and making the entire bush rattle. “You took my source of power away from me, Aonung! You asshole!”

"Shut up, Rotxo," Aonung grumbles affectionately, and finally finds the much needed comfort.

Chapter Text

Aonung prefers not to think about a lot of things these days. In fact, lately he doesn’t seem to think at all. He keeps his mouth shut, his thoughts private, and works hard enough to fall into a deep, dreamless slumber as soon as the night hits.

And it works. He keeps his dreams at bay and his mind on a leash. It may be a little (a lot) constraining, but Aonung prefers it to the alternative. Admiring Neteyam from afar is one thing; having him appear in the most personal part of Aonung’s brain is a completely different one. The important thing is that the latter has stopped happening. Aonung thanks Eywa and tries to move on with his daily life.

Neteyam unknowingly opposes him at every turn.

Why must he be so tactile? Aonung knows he’s complained about it before and yet it’s not enough. He needs to scream into the abyss of the ocean. He whines about it to Rotxo instead. Not too much, obviously, and not too tragically — the last thing he needs right now is additional mockery from his friend on top of all of the emotional stress he’s been going through.

Something positively surges in him whenever Neteyam lays a hand on his back or drums on his arm or playfully smacks his shoulder. It makes Aonung miserable as much as it fills him with euphoria. And both of these feelings inevitably lead to shame. He doesn’t want to be reduced to this— this pile of wretched goo.

“Just tell him and be done with it,” Rotxo advises him one day after he has learned of Aonung’s crush.“It’s like pulling a splinter out. Hurts but heals quickly.”

It is a rainy morning, and a rather unpleasant one, but his company makes it a little more bearable. Yet, the calming pitter-patter against the waterproof roof of the Marui does little to ease the boredom of having to cleaning fish. After Aoti had found out that his son had ditched his chores to sneak out with Aonung, he had forced them both to make up for the missing work.

“You know I can’t do that,” Aonung says, carefully removing every tiny scale from the exceptionally delicate hammerbrow he’s holding.

Rotxo hums in agreement. He has been saddled with a more grotesque task: gutting the fish. “Yeah, I know," he agrees. "Thought it was customary to offer, though. Least I could do.”

“How noble of you,” Aonung deadpans, making Rotxo snort quietly. They sit in comfortable silence after that. There is some gratification in their work; the promise of roasted hammerbrow would make anyone in Awa’atlu salivate.

"Do you want to get out?" Rotxo asks out of nowhere.

Aonung scoffs. “Your dad will kill us both.”

“No, that's not what I meant,” Rotxo shakes his head and pauses to think. He looks serious enough to make Aonung worry. “Do you want to stop… having feelings for Neteyam, and all that?”

“I—” Aonung dwindles, thrown off the casual rhythm they had. Usually his exchanges with Rotxo are much more insouciant. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

The answer should be a hard yes. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to voice it. Perhaps in the past he’s given himself some breathing room concerning his... problem; that has changed the moment that stupid dream had happened. This typhoon of guilt and infatuation in his chest has been ravaging him ever since — it’s so much safer to extinguish it before it grows out of hand.

(Before it grows more out of hand.)

The idea bothers Aonung, because he isn’t meant to be a coward. He likes to think he's never been one in the first place. Now, his pride and dignity are at stake — it is embarrassing how much he is afraid of Neteyam’s rejection, considering it won’t ever happen. Aonung simply won’t give him anything to reject, only yearn and suffer in silence and in secret until he dies. End of.

“Spending time with him isn’t going to help you,” Rotxo says. “If you really, really want out, then you should start avoiding him.”

“That’s awful advice,” Aonung says, less surprised at the offer and more at whom it had come from.

“It’s honest advice,” Rotxo defends and finishes gutting his third hammerbrow, slipping it into a bowl with the rest. He’s right, of course. Aonung has arrived to that conclusion a while ago. Only now it seems like a viable alternative. “It’s what I would do if I were in love with someone I knew — to an absolute degree — I didn’t have a chance with.”

Aonung grimaces. “Love is a rather a strong word, but I guess—”

“You don’t know how Neteyam feels, though, so you can’t do that,” Rotxo interrupts, catching him off-guard. Aonung frowns at him. “Maybe he could see you as a partner after you put yourself on the market. Or maybe he already does and you’re about to ruin his weak little heart—”

“Who are you, my mom?” Aonung bristles. “I do know.”

That's not true. Aonung isn’t good at reading people, unless they were either Rotxo or Tsireya, and he isn’t supposed to be. That’s the job of a Tsahik, not an Olo’eyktan in training. Neteyam’s playful teasing confuses him — it feels special, until he goes ahead and banters in the same way with a dozen other people. Sometimes his siblings. They're close, Aonung thinks a bit wistfully. Are him and Neteyam close like that? He hopes not. He desperately doesn’t want to be seen as a brother, in spite of all of his frustrations.

“With full certainty? Without the slightest smidge of doubt?” Rotxo asks. Aonung opens his mouth and shuts it once he realizes he’s got nothing to counter with. “Exactly. You’ll just make things worse for yourself.”

“So what should I do? Go out and advertise myself?” Aonung asks dryly.

Rotxo considers it. “No. It’s too early. But it’ll be cowardly to hide before you even know what’s going to happen.”

It’s terrifying how Rotxo always knows the right thing to say when he’s trying to convince Aonung. His words pluck a nerve, ever so gently. “I’m not hiding,” he snarks defiantly. Then, milder, “But I suppose you’re sort of right.”

“You should totally listen to me more.” Rotxo grins at him, lighthearted.

Aonung rolls his eyes in a practiced motion. “And then become you? Hard pass. Our village would be in shambles.”

“How dare you?” Rotxo yelps, springs to his feet, and waves his knife at Aonung. “I think it’s already in shambles, with the way you treat your fellow Metkayina.”

“I'm so sorry,” Aonung drawls, grabbing one of the cleaned hammerbrow and pointing it at Rotxo as if it were a dagger. The fish feels slippery in his hands. He almost drops it. “A duel would settle this dispute, would it not?”

“Apology not accepted! We shall fight to the death,” Rotxo announces, then adds, “Lunatic.”

“Unforgivable!” Aonung says and lunges at his best friend, who, almost on instinct, points his knife away and safely out of range. Aonung swings at him with his half-cleaned hammerbrow in hand. Rotxo takes two hits to the chest before booking it out of the Marui and he drops the abused hammerbrow back into its bowl, hooting triumphantly after him. “Run for your life, you reef tick!”

Rotxo slips out of sight with barely contained laughter, leaving Aonung to finish the chores alone. He stands in the entrance of the pod, as if he's a mighty warrior, and shakes his fist at Rotxo's retreating back. Joy blooms and spreads all over his body, warming him — this feels just like the games they used to play as children.

He’s getting sentimental. Aonung turns away from the entrance and takes two steps back to the discarded knives and bowls on the floor, before someone catches his shoulder. He whirls around, expecting to reward Rotxo with another fish-powered whack for his troubles, and instead locks eyes with Neteyam.

He's handsome, as always. Aonung despises him for it. Neteyam has strung two new beads in his hair — a celebration, most likely, of finally mastering ilu riding and the Metkayina breathing techniques. They hang proudly under his ear, adding to the existing set of glass and crystal and wooden beads on the other side of his head. Aonung has never worn beads himself. They distract him when they inevitably clink together and they don't seem to go well with his bun. When they were younger, Tsireya had called him a berry shrub, and that quickly put an end to all of his experimentations. Now, though, he's tempted to try again.

“Hey,” Neteyam says breathlessly. How long has he been there? How much has he heard? Does he know? Panic renders Aonung immobile, before common sense desperately shoves it out. Neteyam doesn't seem angry or awkward or nervous. On the contrary, he looks like he just ran here all the way from the cliffs.

Tentative relief fills Aonung. "Hey," he responds, deceptively calm.

It is only then that he notices the dozen or so blue kllpxiwll berries that Neteyam gently cradles in his pal. Where did he even get them from? Aonung rarely sees them even when they’re in season (which they're not), due to how sparsely they grow on the island. Neteyam shoves the berries into his open hands, placing his fingers over Aonung’s as he forces them to close around the offering.

“Take it, I’ve been looking for you for an entire hour. You need to eat these quickly, before Lo’ak finds out I took some from our share. He gets greedy since they’re so hard to find outside of the jungle.”

Their hands slot together. Neteyam’s eyes light up with mischief and secrecy. It feels intimate, startlingly so, and it makes the back of Aonung’s neck grow hot. Neteyam gestures with a hand over his mouth — the Metkayinan sign for ‘be quiet’ — and Aonung may have just fallen in love.

He hasn’t meant to think that.

It’s almost like it is in my dream.

He hasn’t meant to think that, either.

“You can share with Rotxo, just promise you won’t rat me out,” Neteyam whispers quickly, before a distant shriek interrupts him. It sounds like Lo’ak. His eyes dart around the area, thrill mixed with paranoia. “Shit. I have to go, but remember, don’t snitch on me—”

“Wait,” Aonung croaks, frantically fighting off the warmth that blooms in his chest. Neteyam turns expectant eyes on him. It's unfair how much of an effect he has on Aonung, especially when he himself never seems fazed by anything at all. “Rotxo said you were looking for me yesterday,” Aonung begins and trails off, hoping Neteyam would just fill in the blanks himself.

Neteyam only looks confused. Aonung regrets bringing it up. Maybe Rotxo got the details wrong. Maybe Neteyam wasn’t searching for him, ever. Maybe he is just being needlessly convoluted—

“Oh yeah,” Neteyam says awkwardly. His eyes dart around the village walkways once more. “No, actually, that’s a different thing. Unimportant—mmmmm no, actually— you know what? I’ll tell you later. Sounds good?”

“Yeah,” is all that Aonung has time to say before Neteyam clears out. He stands there, numb and dazed, with a dozen berries in his hands. Neteyam seems to have this effect on him a lot, lately. He barges in, uninvited, makes Aonung breathless, and then leaves without so much as a trace. It's brutally inconsiderate. He's lucky that Aonung can't do anything about it.

His mind ineluctably recalls the dream. Neteyam had looked otherworldly there, as if he'd been painted onto the walls of Aonung’s skull with vibrant, shimmering hues of blue and gold. The real Neteyam is different, and somehow better. It makes everything a million times worse. Aonung reaches up to touch his lips where they had kissed and recoils immediately. The action burns his fingertips.

He should stop doing stuff like this if he wants to keep seeming normal.

Rotxo's voice jolts him out of his stupor. His friend appears soon after, trudging on the bouncy docks and from where he'd previously escaped to the sea. One of his arms is raised in surrender, as if Aonung can't see the handful of wet sand he's hiding behind his back. One that, in only a few seconds, will likely end up on Aonung's face.

"Listen, I want an apology," Rotxo starts off strong, but he can't keep the anticipatory grin off his face, "and I'm not gonna accept it unless you finish gutting the rest of the fish for me—whoa, where did you manage to get these?”

Aonung meets his eyes, helpless, and Rotxo's smile wavers. "Kllpxiwll," he answers, "Neteyam found some." He then fails to elaborate.

It doesn't matter. Rotxo's always smarter than he seems. He radiates amusement, joy, and self-satisfaction at Aonung, all communicated in a single look. "You know you're pathetic, right?" he teases, making Aonung grimace at him.

"I'm not," he denies. But that’s the least of his concerns, for now. What matters more is the heartbeat in his ears, the rush of glee under his ribs, both threatening to fill him with enough warmth to make him float.

"You can't claim he's indifferent, not anymore," Rotxo says.

Aonung quickly stamps down on his rising hope, as well as the excitement it brings. "Friends bring each other stuff all the time."

"Sure," Rotxo agrees, walking up to him and sneakily stealing a berry for himself. Aonung doesn't stop him, not even when he reaches for more. "But this, Aonung? This has potential."

It’s absolutely appalling.

Chapter Text

There’s a shriek, and Rotxo falls.

Physically, Aonung first notes. His friend wobbles, shoved head-first into the shore, and the caterwauling around him dissolves into loud laughter. If he hadn't known any better, he would’ve assumed Rotxo was being mocked — the thought alone coaxes a scowl out of him. But his friend simply gets back up, beaming and laughing, and inadvertently keeps Aonung rooted in his Marui four dozen feet away.

Which brings him to point number two: Rotxo falls metaphorically, in every sense of the word.

Aonung can tell. How could he not? His childhood is filled with warm, blurry-at-the-edges memories of their shared shenanigans. Of shared fights, too, but Aonung is told that Rotxo had steadily won him over with his endless sincerity and a knack for sarcasm, both qualities somehow coexisting despite their juxtaposition. Rotxo's honest, too, in a considerate (mostly considerate, semi-considerate) way. Open-hearted. So much that, even if they haven't been plaguing each other for the past fifteen years, Aonung could still read him with naught a mistake. Rotxo is simply wonderful — he's been telling that to him through his merciless bullying every day.

He watches him blunder from afar, stuck in his pod trying to weave baskets, and pinpoints the exact moment Rotxo locks eyes with his attacker. He glimmers and he glows and Aonung might just have to throw up. Maybe intentionally.

Kiri beams back at Rotxo with equal, if not more amounts of energy. She pushes him gently, and Rotxo, the sudden king of over-exaggeration, lets himself drop like a thousand-pound sack of oysters. The spell is broken, for now. Aonung barely gets ten seconds of peace before they’re back at their clumsy flirting. Eywa help them. Eywa help him.

It’s not like he isn’t happy for Rotxo. Or rather, that he isn’t able to tolerate this—this whole thing. Quite on the contrary, really! Kiri is supposedly nice (sort of) and she’s funny in a dry way and more importantly, she puts Rotxo into a good mood. That’s more than enough for Aonung. He just wishes they didn’t have to frolic in front of him. Aonung begs the Great Mother to provide him with some other form of entertainment, one that didn't involve staring emptily into baskets all day.

A pang of guilt eats at him. He never ended up properly apologizing to Kiri for... all of his stupid mistakes, not in a way that truly mattered. She'd already forgiven Rotxo — perhaps she could have it in her heart to do the same for him... Granted, Rotxo possesses far more charm than him. The only way Aonung knows to say sorry involves a fair amount of self-insults, misplaced humor, and apologetic glowering. It worked on Neteyam and Lo'ak. Kiri is dissimilar to both of them. It's probably not helping that it's been weeks from their original scuffle and he hasn't said a word.

He turns to his half-finished baskets for comfort and swats away at the impending shame. There’s no need to be so bleak today. He’ll apologize soon, and he'll mean it. It just can’t be today. Today is the last day of his punishment.

He had woken up that morning with waning weariness veiling his withdrawn cheer, and knew that this exact time tomorrow, he’ll stop being everyone’s errand boy. Or, to be more accurate, he’ll stop being the entire village’s errand boy; it is still a role he will continue to shoulder for his immediate family until he passes his Iknimaya trials and-slash-or dies.

It’s midday, though, and he’s been trying to graduate from such morbidity into something far more optimistic, regardless of every little annoyance that comes to stand in his way. Aonung swears on his health that he will pass this day on his best behavior and decides it's a promise.

A loose promise. The broad leaves of the palms he’d visited this morning fight against his attempts to weave and bend them into obedience. They are still far too fresh. They're also steering dangerously close into Aonung's temper outburst territory.

He glances back at the beach. Tuk had joined Kiri and Rotxo in the time he’d spent sulking and unintentionally provides him some relief. Rotxo’s mouth moves as he says something Aonung is unable to hear, and his audience melts into more laughter. He’s putting on a show, Aonung thinks, exasperated. Usually Rotxo would keep him company on the days he’s forced to work boring, repetitive tasks, but today it appears he’s occupied with things more frivolous. Still, it’s begrudgingly amusing to watch him act like a fool. Aonung only wishes he could join them.

“So, were you banished or something?” someone speaks up from behind him and successfully startles Aonung out of his skin.

He turns his head so fast that he pulls a muscle and groans, cradling his neck gently. Neteyam stands in the entrance of his Marui, caught between concern and mirth, and quickly invites himself in.

“What is wrong with you?” Aonung grumpily shoots at him, mustering all of his bite and failing to properly convey any. It sounds more like a squeak.

Neteyam has the decency to look at least a little apologetic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He sends him a dirty look, as if he's just been told the world's most tasteless joke. “You didn’t,” Aonung says before he can even think. He isn’t about to go around taking back what’s true, though. Semi-true. Almost true. No, really, he’d barely even flinched, promise. He’s not lying. Please.

Neteyam’s lips quirk up, almost teasingly. “Sure.”

Aonung rolls his eyes at him after failing to find any proper response (how does one deal with him, anyway, without ending up trying to flirt?). “I’m going to assume you didn’t mean to mock me, either,” Aonung says, “otherwise, you’d quickly regret it.”

“Of course,” Neteyam agrees smoothly, sits down next to him, and picks up one of the baskets Aonung had poured his heart and soul into. Through unknown means, Aonung can tell his work is being crudely judged. “How do I put this,” Neteyam begins and proceeds to look unfairly dashing in the warm shade of Aonung’s Marui, “your baskets are kind of, sorta, really bad.”

It’s probably a testament to Aonung’s ridiculous infatuation with him that he can’t think of a snappy response. Neteyam returns the basket and instead focuses his efforts into fishing the half-completed palm leaf mess out of Aonung’s hands.

“Hey, what are you—” Aonung holds on to it tightly. Weaving is a precarious, fragile task. He isn’t about to let some idiot — no matter how stupidly charming said idiot is — unravel all his work in favor of pushing his buttons.

“Just let me help,” Neteyam says and Aonung loses most of his resolve in an instant. He summons the last of his receding stubbornness to give one final warning.

“Neteyam, the elders have given me this task as my last chore of this week—”

“And I’d hate if anything happened to you,” Neteyam interrupts, eyes twinkling, “just because you suck at weaving.”

Aonung’s breath catches in his throat. The freshly buried remnants of his dream come back to him.

What if you happen?

Would you let me?

His lips tingle softly. He curls his fingers into fists, ashamed. “Just say you like me,” Aonung says in surrender, and regrets it before it even fully exits his mouth. Neteyam’s eyes widen.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He needs to stop. Why can’t he stop? Eywa, make him stop, please—

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Neteyam jokes, completely unaware of how much fear he just instilled into the hearts of the pining. Relief fills Aonung, reluctantly, even as the words cut into his flesh.

“Worth a try,” Aonung laughs weakly. A beat of silence passes between them, as Neteyam gauges the basket with expert eyes and sets to work. The feeling of deja-vu grows stronger. “By the way… thanks for the kllpxiwll berries yesterday. Rotxo ate most of them, but I’ll pass his gratitude as well.”

“That’s a shame,” Neteyam says, not looking up at him. His fingers daintily locate the ends of the leaf strips that Aonung has been practically ripping into ribbons out of frustration. He loosens the last few rows of the basket and begins properly re-tightening them. “I don’t think I can get you any more. Lo’ak tried to kill me in my sleep after he found out I stole some from his share. That’s why I had to give them to you quickly and discreetly.”

That reminds Aonung. “You can make it up to me.”

“Do I want to?" Neteyam scoffs at him, playfully. "I've already given you the rarest fruit your island has to offer. This isn’t courtship, Aonung. You should be grateful.”

Their banter will drive him mad one day. “You do want to — don’t argue — and you could start by telling me why you were looking for me a few days ago.” It’s probably nothing. It eats at his insides.

Neteyam's hands still as he pointedly looks away. Aonung impatiently awaits his response, but when the silence stretches on for too long, he raises a judgmental brow. It’s almost like he’s…

Embarrassed, Aonung realizes, and his intrigue soars.

“Yeah, about that,” Neteyam finally begins and almost trails off. He fiddles with the basket. “Actually, it’s already resolved. Didn’t matter. Was unimportant.”

“Unimportant enough to make Rotxo complain all morning?” Aonung asks innocently. "He says you shook him out of sleep. That's like a crime. He could've bitten you, and who knows what kinds of diseases he could harbor? A risky move, for something insignificant."

“I should’ve known he’d tell you about that,” Neteyam groans, exasperation mixed with amusement, and shakes his head. “Are you really that curious?”

“Sort of,” Aonung admits, and shoots back, “Who wouldn’t be?”

“Point taken. I, uh. It’s nothing really. This is just going to sound weird—”

“Just say it.”

“—I needed one of your knives.” Neteyam looks pained.

Aonung can’t help but laugh. “Didn’t we give your family like a million different ones?”

“I needed yours,” Neteyam insists, making Aonung fall silent, stunned. “I told you this would sound weird. I promise it’s not, though — I don’t think it is, anyway,” he catches Aonung’s concerned look, “it’s not, really, I swear.”

“...Okay,” Aonung says. In spite of his confusion, he sort of enjoys watching Neteyam squirm. Then he grows aware of that thought and beats it violently out of his mind. It doesn’t work. “You could’ve just asked me sooner. Here.” He pulls his fishing knife out of its sheath as his hip. Its obsidian edge reflects sunshine onto the walls of the pod.

Neteyam takes it out of his hands without further ado. Aonung half-expects him to chop up the uglier of his palm leaf baskets, but Neteyam only balances the blade in his hands, judges the thickness of the hilt, and gives it a couple of test swings. Aonung leans away from his merciless slashing of the air.

“Are you here just to torment me, or is there another reason?” he jokes, basket discarded, and feels himself grow more and more helpless with each passing second.

Neteyam grins in a way that does bad things to Aonung’s self-control. “You clearly enjoy my company.”

Aonung jabs him in the ribs. Neteyam throws his head back as he laughs, exposing his neck in such a casual display of trust that it leaves Aonung momentarily speechless. He quickly turns back towards the mess of leaves in his hands. “Keep talking, forest boy, and that will change.”

“Hint taken.” ‘Forest boy’ graciously returns him his favorite knife, presenting it to Aonung like he’s some kind of fearsome leader. “Please accept my humble apologies, Olo’eyktan. It will not happen again.” It’s stupid and absurd. It makes Aonung crack up.

He tucks the blade back into its sheath. “What’d you need it for, anyway?”

“You’ll see,” is all Neteyam says, before he shoves the rewoven basket into Aonung’s arms and gets up to leave. Its quality is… immense. Definitely better than whatever Aonung could braid on his own. The feeling of deja-vu is starting to become overbearing.

(Neteyam carefully folds the net so it doesn’t tangle and pushes it in Aonung’s hands. They hold it, together.)

Get a grip, Aonung.

How? Aonung thinks back at himself, as he watches Neteyam exit and waves after him. It’s impossible.

He keeps working on the baskets for another hour, even though none of them can compare to the one Neteyam made for him. Aonung half-heartedly considers keeping it and knows that he can’t — it’s weird. He isn’t used to being enthralled.

What he should be is jealous, because Neteyam is talented at everything Aonung isn’t, and he still manages to develop in things he sucks at. When Aonung fails, it just seems like he keeps failing. He is the troubled firstborn, sardonic and spiteful, trailing after the golden boy, the perfect son, the gifted charmer. Neteyam is the ideal heir: the Prince of the Forest.

The son of Toruk Makto.

Aonung treats him like he’s the solution to all of his problems, when in reality, Neteyam is the root. He’s like a weed. Aonung can’t find it in himself to dig him up.

He falls asleep in the middle of his seventh basket and wakes up by eclipse, when the incessant shaking refuses to stop. Someone has grabbed him by the shoulders in an attempt to rouse him. Terrible mistake.

Aonung groggily opens his eyes and aims a smack in a random direction in hopes of catching his attacker by surprise.

To his astonishment, he hits right on target.

“I am going to kill you,” Neteyam says with forced tranquility after Aonung had successfully cuffed him in the head. Aonung quickly sits up, lips forming around an intelligible apology. Neteyam watches him expectantly from where he kneels next to him.

They are far too close for his comfort. “What do you want?” Aonung snarks as he leans away, hoping it’ll drive him off. Naps have never worked on him in the way that they were supposed to work — he always woke up more stunned and grumpier than ever. There is an uncomfortable film over his eyes. He rubs at it viciously.

“Jesus Christ, Aonung—” Neteyam pulls at his arms and the touch burns. It’s dim in the Marui. Aonung’s heartbeat steadily rises to his ears. “You’re going to go blind. Come on, your dad sent me to get you.”

“Since when are you the local errand boy?” Aonung asks, untangling himself from the loose palm leaves he must’ve rolled into in his sleep. He feels vulnerable, caught in a moment of peace by the last person he’d want to see during said moment.

“Since you escaped that responsibility.” Neteyam stands up and offers him a hand. Why must he be so tactile? Is being present not enough? Aonung clasps him around his laughably skinny wrist, and is pleasantly surprised when he is pulled up with shocking strength. Their tails flail for balance, sending the already scattered leaves into more disarray. “Rotxo and some other people are already there,” Neteyam continues. “It’s something important, I think. They didn’t tell me.”

“Ugh,” Aonung manages. Neteyam laughs, making his spirits lift a little. “Fine. Thanks.”

“Just go,” Neteyam says in place of a goodbye, and pushes him out.

Aonung trudges back to his Marui later that evening, shocked into a rare bout of silence. His father walks by his side at a far more relaxed pace — of course it doesn’t bother him, he must’ve passed his own trials around three dozen years ago. Excitement and anxiety flutter around in Aonung’s chest, fighting against each other, mixing into one. Only an hour ago, he and a select few of his peers were informed they were ready to start the Iknimaya tests. The rite of passage. The transition into adulthood. It frightens him about as much as it thrills him.

Tonowari breaks first (a poor choice of words; Aonung’s dad might as well be unbreakable). “You shouldn’t worry,” he says reassuringly. “We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t think you were ready.”

Aonung shakes his head. “I’m not worried,” he says quickly. “I’m just— I’m gonna—” The words elude him. There’s just so much to think about; the combat training, the hunter’s test, the offerings to Eywa, and most importantly, “I’m gonna need to tame a tsurak.”

“And to complete about a dozen other trials, yes,” Aonung’s father agrees, his eyes softening. He looks amused; Aonung frowns at him. “But you’ve grown quite experienced with some of them, haven’t you? Perhaps now you can look back at your weeks of chores more fondly.”

“Of course, dad,” Aonung says dryly, and suddenly remembers the discarded, only half-completed baskets he’d abandoned earlier. Dread trickles down his spine. He’d had almost the entire day to finish them and he'd napped instead. Made a mess with all the leftover leaves, too. This can’t happen, it’s his last day of punishment, please—

He barges into his Marui, ignoring his mother’s and sister’s raised brows.

Ten finished baskets are stacked in the back, neat and tidy, and the three on top are woven practically perfectly. There is not a single misplaced leaf in sight.

Neteyam.

Chapter Text

Aonung’s Iknimaya training begins and it’s not as bad as he’d anticipated. That is not to say that the first few days aren’t rough.

He should be euphoric, or at the very least excited, but the only thing he feels at the end of each day is exhaustion. Bone-deep, chilling, numbing exhaustion. The kind that makes him drop like a sack of rocks the moment he's dismissed. It’s not fair — he had graduated from his chore week only two days ago and now he’s back to more dead nights and weary mornings. Every day is a challenge.

He means that literally. Or, sort of literally. His father pushes him to his limits, whether it’s combat training, or diving, or ilu-riding, or hunting trips. And when his father is busy, Aoti takes his place. He’s arguably even more driven in making Aonung stumble. He had also made it his own responsibility to drag Aonung out of his Marui at evil hours in the morning and today, unfortunately, is one of these days.

It is bright and it is early. Aonung tolerates both of these things in controlled quantities. Standing outside of his Marui at the crack of dawn, shaken out of bed an hour earlier than the rest of the village, counts as something dangerously outside his normal dose, and Aonung intends to make it everyone’s problem.

“Brighten up, Aonung,” Aoti says in place of a greeting as he meanders past him, inexplicably cheerful. It only irritates Aonung further. “The mountain isn’t going to climb itself.”

“The mountain isn’t meant to be climbed,” Aonung grumbles. He waits for a few more moments in hopes that Rotxo may pop out from the ground to join them, but to no avail. They’re rarely ever paired together for these types of exercises. Defeated, he trudges after Aoti. “This is stupid. We never ever go into the jungle.”

“Mighty warrior you are,” Aoti laughs, “afraid of a little hiking. Hurry up, we’ve got a long morning ahead of us.”

He leads them out of the village and down a vaguely-familiar path uphill. Aonung never ventures beyond the flat, open beaches that encompass the island; he prefers exploring the ocean floor over anything that even remotely requires him to climb up to higher altitudes. Aoti is different. Sometimes Aonung wonders if he was meant to be born Metkayinan — Aoti wanders the forest almost every day in search of mysterious little ingredients to add to his junk collection, which he claims is a 'materials-and-resources stockpile'. Aonung knows better. It's a hoard, through and through. Aonung tries not to judge him too harshly.

It is when they move off-path, though, down between low-hanging branches and enormous protruding leaves, through a thicket that is clearly not meant to be traversed, and across several lanes of treacherous mangrove roots, that Aonung begins to worry.

“Aoti,” he calls, barely keeping up with the lively pace Aoti had set, “wait for me—where are we even going?”

“I told you,” Aoti says, looking back and waiting exactly for half a moment, before he dives into stalks and stalks of unfamiliar foliage. “Up the mountain. It’s good practice.”

Aonung follows his voice. The grass obscures his vision and he swats away at it. “We are ocean Na’vi. Nobody ever comes here.”

“You see, Aonung, that’s where you’re wrong,” Aoti says, sounding far-off. “If you’d spent a little less time snarking and a little more time listening, you’d know that there are many interesting things to be found here.”

“I already know that,” Aonung defends. He stumbles out of the tall vegetation and into the open — about as open a place like this can be, anyway, with trees standing so tall they block off the sky. “But I’m not some prolemuris. And I don’t see Rotxo being shoved into the jungle, either.”

“Believe me, he’s got it worse today,” Aoti reassures, somewhere above. Aonung realizes he had taken to the trees and turns dumbfounded eyes upwards in hopes of finding him. “Anyway, it seems that I’m going too easy on you. Meet you at the top — and don’t even try to sneak back home, or I’ll eat you.”

Aonung rolls his eyes. “I’m not a little kid anymore.” He catches a glimpse of Aoti’s tail, twenty feet up, before he seemingly disappears into thin air. “Aoti?” No response. “Aoti, wait up!” Dead silence.

All of his previous ire is nothing in comparison to what he feels now.

Ten minutes later, Aonung comes to the conclusion that, if this is a prank, it’s not a funny one. And if it isn’t a prank — and it is growing decidedly clear that it’s not — then he isn’t doing himself any favors by standing around looking like an idiot. Not that there’s anyone who can really judge him here. Regardless.

He doesn’t dare to climb the trees, not when they look so... capricious. He’d tried in the past, when he was younger, and all it did was give him a bruised back and teach him an unpleasant lesson. Aonung trudges on, side-stepping vines and roots and debris, and heads uphill. It’s steep; the dirt becomes dry, coarse, and prone to sliding under his feet. Aonung doesn’t care. He’s fueled by that rare kind of determination that is born out of pride and a dying need to prove someone wrong.

He will show Aoti. He’ll show him, or perish trying. Yes. That sounds like a good plan.

He likes to think that he’s still pretty nimble. It’s tiring to keep ascending up the slope, but he tries hard. He’s only a little out of breath, really. And if this will help him pass the Iknimaya, he'll do it, no questions asked.

Maybe some questions asked. And many complaints voiced, too — but actions speak louder than words, do they not?

He grabs at the thinner, younger tree trunks that populate the thick forest around him as he climbs higher. The bark is coarse and sturdy under his palms. Out in the ocean, it’s not rare to have the reef block his sightline, but the sky is always a head turn away. Here, no matter how much he cranes his neck, he can’t see further than the faraway foliage. Still, Aonung tries hard, gaze angled towards the sky.

Perhaps that’s how he ends up walking right into a lone, upset ikran.

Aonung yelps and leaps away so fast he almost trips over his own feet. The ikran, not very pleased with having its tail stepped on, hisses and gives him a full view of its terrifying, retractable teeth. Aonung draws his knife. It looks like a child’s toy when faced with that thing. But he holds his ground, his heart in his throat, and waits for the beast to make the first move.

The ikran stalks towards him, maw open, and Aonung tenses in preparation to fight, when—

“Tìtstunwi! Tìtstunwi, he’s a friend!” Neteyam yells, springing from somewhere in the undergrowth and shoving at the ikran’s neck before it can snap at Aonung. It heeds when he soothes it. “I’m so sorry,” Neteyam says, mortified, “she’s nervous because we’re so low on the ground. Are you okay?”

Low? Aonung thinks, then, Tìtstunwi?  That was this ikran’s name? ‘Kindness’?

Still reeling, Aonung lets out a breath he didn’t realize he's been holding and tucks the knife back into its sheath. “That— it — your monster almost just killed me!” he accuses, breathless and strained, eyes wide. His heart hammers on. He hates the way 'Tìtstunwi' looks at him with her beady little eyes.

“Did she bite?” Neteyam asks worriedly. Aonung is fairly sure that, if he's truly been bitten, he’d be lying on the floor, bleeding and writhing in agony. But Neteyam looks genuinely scared, so he reluctantly keeps the thought to himself.

Slowly, he wills his shoulders to relax. “I’m fine,” Aonung says, carefully shuffling over in a wide arc around the ikran. She ignores him. Stellar. “I had my knife with me. I doubt it would’ve saved me from getting mauled, though."

“She wouldn’t do that,” Neteyam tries to comfort him, scratching Tìtstunwi absentmindedly under the chin. Once Aonung nears, he gently releases her, and the ikran almost crabbily ambles away to sulk under the trees that must be too weak to hold her weight. “...Maybe only a little. If I’d known there were other Na'vi here, I wouldn’t have left her by herself, I swear. What are you even doing here?”

Aonung groans, making Neteyam break out into a tentative smile. He’s wearing a visor around his skull; Aonung had never seen one before. It frames Neteyam's face in an unfamiliar way that he doesn’t particularly dislike. Lately he seems to enjoy most things about Neteyam, to be honest. Embarrassing.

“Training.” It sounds stupid when Aonung says it. “Aoti has dragged me out here to practice — uh, practice… hiking, I guess. My dad decided that I’m ready to start my Iknimaya soon. I just need to prepare a little, that's all."

Neteyam eyes him curiously. Aonung hopes he’s impressed. “You haven’t had your Iknimaya yet?” is what he says instead, shattering whatever remains of Aonung’s previously wounded ego. “We’re almost the same age.”

“Have you?” Aonung asks defensively, already dreading the answer — there is a battle band proudly encircling Neteyam’s waist, just under his ribs, and Aonung knows a trophy when he sees one. Intricate embroidery is stitched out across its fabric with bright, cheerful threads. There’s just no way it’s not some mark of achievement. He’d seen it once before, when Jakesully’s family had just arrived at Awa'atlu. Neteyam stopped wearing it once it became clear that he was unforgivably clumsy in the water, though.

Now he’s almost as good as a ten-year-old. It’s a big compliment. Aonung would even go as far as to call him graceful, perhaps.

“Yeah,” Neteyam says, unbothered, and turns his gaze in the direction of his ruffled ikran. “I tamed Tìtstunwi, haven’t I?” There is a beat of silence between them. Neteyam hurriedly backpedals. “But that’s Omatikayan Iknimaya. I guess I haven’t tried the Metkayinan one.”

“Yes, well, it’s very difficult. With the Tulkun, without the Tulkun… Lots of trials and all,” Aonung asserts. Then, casually, without any filter: “Do you miss your clan?”

“Of course,” Neteyam says earnestly and levels Aonung with a half-wistful, half-humored look. “I’m, uh, like a fish out of water here.”

“A prolemuris out of jungle,” Aonung says, and doesn’t resist the smile that tugs on his lips.

“Precisely.” Neteyam clasps his hand around Aonung’s shoulder and gently pushes him back and forth. Aonung sways like undulated seagrass. “That’s kind of why I’m here, anyway. It’s nothing in comparison with the forest back home… but it’s about as close as it can get.”

Aonung pushes his hand off before he grows overly aware of it and does something stupid, like try to flirt with him. “So. I’m here training, and you’re here hugging the trees.”

“You make it sound stupid. I’m pouring my heart out and you’re shaming me,” Neteyam laughs and shoves him for real. He’s surprisingly… unabashed, and horribly physical. Aonung is taller, bigger than him, and yet he lets himself stumble just to indulge him. “I just like it here. And I’m actually harvesting apxangrr leaves, which is something I didn’t have the time to do yesterday, because someone had left me to finish his chores.”

Right. Aonung has been hoping to avoid that topic, if only it would prevent him from, once again, doing something stupid. Really stupid.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you for the baskets,” he says awkwardly and looks for a way to change the subject. “Even though I didn’t ask for your help at all and you were in no way obliged to do it. Ever.”

“I guess I’m really just a saint,” Neteyam teases, circling around him, eyes glimmering. His fingers lightly touch Aonung's spine as he orbits him, sending barely contained shivers down Aonung's back. What's worse, admitting Neteyam's touch drives him mad, or pretending he's just ticklish? “I bet I saved your ass. Did you run home all terrified? Was I your knight in shining armor?” Aonung has no idea what a saint is, nor a knight, and finds himself too distracted to ask.

So, he does something stupid. “Keep it up," he laughs, flustered, looking down, "and I’ll start suspecting that you’re in love with me.”

“Maybe I am,” Neteyam says without missing a beat, but then snorts and breaks out into loud laughter, as if the idea itself is ridiculous to him. Just like that, he smothers all of Aonung’s advances (or rather, his pathetic attempts at them) into the ground. “Or maybe I’m so good at being an older brother that I become your older brother, older brother.” The air leaves Aonung's lungs, as if someone had punched him in the chest. A brother. Marvelous.

He forces out a chuckle and pretends like he doesn’t care, like there aren’t thorns closing in around his fragile, infuriatingly delicate heart. He wants to cry. He won’t, but he wants to.

At least he can finally start getting over it.

“Right,” Aonung says, and it’s nowhere near the sarcastic, witty remark he’s been hoping for. “Well. I gotta go.” Bad. Still bad. He tries to soften his tone and only ends up sounding brittle. “Aoti’s probably tired of waiting for me. I need to get to the top and back before eclipse.”

“Do you want a lift?” Neteyam asks, pointing with his thumb at his ikran, but Aonung is already pushing past him, towards the sheltered, secure, Neteyam-less forest beyond. Safe. Away from the prying pair of eyes that makes him feel so giddy and so miserable at the same time. Only miserable, now.

“No, it’s alright,” he says, tight-lipped, voice steady, and looks back with an expression he hopes is reassuring enough. "Bye."

He gives him one final wave, which Neteyam uncertainly returns and thankfully doesn’t pursue. Aonung keeps pushing onward until he’s sure he’s out of sight. Only then, he comes to a halt, face in his hand, and lets out a long, quivering breath.

Stupid. How stupid of him.

Chapter Text

Aonung diligently drowns himself in his work. Almost in the literal sense.

He suspects Aoti's abusing his power as his Iknimaya trainer, because there’s no way hunting crustaceans in the murky seagrass fields is somehow related to the trials. But he doesn’t complain. Complaining is for little children, and Aonung is nearly a full adult. He swipes, blindly, with the large bone-carved crab rake he’d borrowed from his father and misses, sending dozens of crabs to scurry between the momentarily disturbed weeds. Aonung mouths off and pounces after them before they disappear.

One pinches his finger when he seizes it; Aonung stuffs it in his bag as punishment. The pain is only partially a welcome distraction; the rest of it filters through as a nuisance. He resists the urge to frown. Complaining is for children.

The cut doesn’t bleed, so he dismisses it as nothing more than a mere inconvenience and repeats the process. Startle, lunge, grab. Stow in bag. Check personal casualties. Focus. Don’t think. This is important work.

He distractedly adjusts his hair bun. The twine holding his hair together snaps, letting his curls slowly cascade over the sides of his head. Aonung shoves them out of his face, setting down his bag and rake, and tries to tie them back up. Crabs tumble over each other in their hurry to break free. He holds his hair in one hand, picks up the bag, releases the hair, stuffs the escapees back in their woven prison, gets pinched, grabs the rake, shoves the hair out of his face using the hand that's holding the rake, accidentally hits himself with said rake's pole, and decides he’s had enough. With powerful, yet restrained strokes, he swims back to the surface.

Aonung crawls onto one of the small, rocky columns that jut out of the water at low tide, dumping his catch unceremoniously on top of the rough exterior. Without the easy push-and-pull of the water, the crabs tangle in the sopping, clinging cloth that Aonung carefully rolls and places under itself, sealing off its exit. Then he sits down and and mends his hair cord.

Don’t think. It’s not important.

He focuses on the cord. It's a temporary but easy fix, even with his clumsy fingers. Simply a couple of loosened threads, worn with age. He’ll borrow a proper hairband from Tsireya, at least until he makes himself a new one. Maybe he could ask someone else to do it — he’s had terrible luck with weaving, recently. Neteyam never seems to have that problem.

Stop. Don’t.

Neteyam might as well be a blessing from Eywa. Neteyam would weave him twenty hairbands if Aonung so much as asked. Neteyam’s hands had closed in around his, lovingly, (can I stay?) in that terrible dream (I’d hate for anything to happen to you) that has haunted Aonung ever since—ever since the—

Regardless.

He gathers gentle fistfuls of hair, mindful of his queue.

He doesn’t hate Neteyam.

He tugs, tightens, carefully twists.

He likes Neteyam.

His hand blindly searches for the thin woven cord he’d discarded moments prior. Aonung holds his bun in place and secures it firmly, punishingly, disregarding the newfound fragility of the hairband.

He may even love Neteyam.

His scalp hurts a little. He’d worked his hair too tight.

Neteyam likes him too. Just not…

He touches Aonung with all the customariness of an old friend. He’s so open that it hurts — in all the wrong ways. Aonung hates him for it — no, he doesn’t. But he feels like he's drowning, sinking into sand, and no amount of teasing and scolding could ever save him. He’d simply gone too far.

He withholds a sigh, if only to avoid the theatrics, and delicately unbalances himself into salty water. The cold of shock of it is about as familiar Aonung's own four fingers. It does very little to distract him.

He understands why they call it falling in love now, as he drifts down into the dark abyss that is the shallow oceanic trench, the silent grave of nalutsa carcasses and blind monstrosities. It fits the metaphor. Aonung has never been a poet, but he decides that love is no flightless nosedive from a jutting cliff. No, it is the gentle, deceptive drop to the seafloor, the kind that coaxes you in, deeper, deeper yet, until you exhaust your oxygen, and realize, with sinking apprehension, that the surface sails too far out of reach.

That's what love is for Aonung now. How it has been — dizzying, blinding, surging — is in the past. And on Neteyam’s part, that love is comfortable, friendly, stable. Like him. Platonic. Like little helpful gestures. Like misused words, like meetings in the jungles, like affectionate shoulder taps, fond, amiable, but not in the right way. Neteyam cherishes Aonung like an unruly sibling.

Aonung needs no older brother.

He doesn’t sigh. He doesn’t complain. He swims back to the surface in fluid, powerful strokes, and heads home, into the warm, unassuming embrace of his family.

“Ouch,” Rotxo says, almost poetically, after wearing Aonung out with his endless nagging. Aonung almost regrets venting to him, but not too much — despite all of his dramatics, it's easier to breathe when the ache building up in his chest is allowed to spill out and dissipate into the air.

Not really, of course. It still hurts. But it is easier.

“Pretty much,” Aonung says dryly, glaring at the fishing hooks he’s been cleaning and re-cleaning over the past hour. The pain remains as a constant reminder. Heartache, Rotxo had called it. Heartburn, Aonung had tried to disagree. “Honestly, I’m glad it’s over.”

Rotxo’s voice softens, “You don’t think that.” Frank. Diplomatic. Lovingly blunt. He’d mastered every approach when it comes to soothing Aonung’s aches. When it comes to mind games, he may as well be the best in the village — Aonung occasionally thanks Eywa for making Rotxo too morally pure to use his powers for evil.

It’s hard to be at an impasse between staying honest to himself and lying to everyone else, though. Or staying honest to Rotxo and lying to himself. Or just lying. Only lying. The coward’s path out.

Aonung is no coward.

“No, I don’t,” he admits, then adds, “but I should’ve seen it coming.”

He keeps his gaze firmly glued to the ground, if only to avoid Rotxo’s sympathetic eyes, his mouth curled into a pout of an appropriate degree. To be fair, Aonung is only imagining it, but it feels plausible in the moment. Pity in Rotxo's gaze. Rueful compassion. His heart bleeds for Aonung’s pathetic state, his— his stupid rejection. Brother, Neteyam had called him. Somewhere deep inside, Aonung can almost see the comedy of it.

“I should’ve seen it coming,” is what Rotxo says instead, and Aonung finally looks up. Rotxo levels him with a frustrated, but ultimately unsympathetic look, and he suddenly remembers why he cherishes him so much. “It doesn’t add up. I was so sure… He practically fawns over you all day.”

“Yeah, out of habit. He has to cling to someone or he’ll die,” Aonung deadpans, fighting off false hope. “It’s an ancient curse.”

“You don’t get it,” Rotxo says exasperatedly. “You suck at reading people. You don’t get a say in this.”

Aonung snorts bitterly, finally shoving the polished hooks back into their basket. Rotxo watches him with growing trepidation. “I don’t ‘get’ a lot of things. He was rather clear with me. Left no space for arguments, really. He wants a brother, I’ll be a brother. As if damn Lo’ak wasn’t enough.”

“That wasn’t clear at all. And people don’t always show what they want,” Rotxo says, with extra inflection to suggest he is trying to imitate a wise elder. When Aonung stands, he follows, right at his heels. “And, to be fair, he isn’t exactly the sharpest around here…”

“Definitely not,” Aonung nods, and both of them skim around the fact that Neteyam has been making leaps and bounds in his Metkayinan training.

A phantom grin graces Rotxo’s face as he glances at Aonung, infused with fresh hope. He continues, “So, logically… Maybe he was just unaware. Maybe he just never thought about courting. Maybe he’s stupid, or something. Maybe you should actually tell him—”

“Rotxo, just drop it,” Aonung interrupts and Rotxo falls silent.

In the brief silence that follows (it feels like hours) Aonung mulls over his short temper. It’s worse than usual today. Guilt contaminates him at the edges, then spreads deeper, into his core. Shame follows suit.

“I’m sorry,” Rotxo says, and Aonung once again finds himself struggling to mend things.

“No, I—” he trails off, swallowing thickly.  It seems that he has to apologize every month now. Shouldn’t one become better with practice? “I don’t know why I did that. Ignore me. I’m sorry.” His hand finds its way to his face. He rubs at his temples, trying to find at least some relief. Empty.

Rotxo places a hand on his shoulder, gently, and Aonung knows he’s been forgiven. “What are you going to do now?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs, trying to seem more nonchalant now. As if it would fool him. “Just—I only need a day or two. And then it’ll all go back to normal. I promise.”

Rotxo scoffs, “You haven’t been normal ever since Neteyam arrived here.” He’s not wrong, per se, but Aonung can’t resist the smack he sends at the back of his head. Rotxo yelps and shoves him in the ribs in revenge. “What was that for?”

“Truth hurts,” Aonung wheezes out.

Rotxo makes a face at him, then sobers up. Aonung grimaces back just for the sake of it. “Maybe you should put your private tutoring on hold,” he suggests carefully. “At least for today.”

That’s right. He has a session today. It’s not like Aonung has forgotten — he’s just been avoiding thinking about it.

And what was there to think about, anyway? They were only lessons. Between friends. He likes playing teacher, and it’s decidedly not because Neteyam looks at him like he’s some sort of genius. Brilliant, Neteyam had said once, when he’d realized Aonung was fluent in three languages: Na’vi, sign, Tulkun. Would you teach me Tulkun after this?

Aonung had said, yes, of course. Without missing a beat.

“I can’t just cancel,” he tells Rotxo, before the aching returns or worse, grows stronger. “It’ll be too weird and obvious.”

“You’re weird and obvious,” Rotxo argues. “You’re always weird and obvious. But now you’re grumpy, too, and you’re making it my problem.”

Aonung grins at him. “You could always just walk away. You don’t have to be here.”

“Maybe I will,” Rotxo says, making no move to leave. His index finger jabs at the soft flesh of Aonung’s belly, who, despite the receding pain and startled yelp of betrayal, feels lighter all the same.

Contrary to Rotxo’s belief in Aonung (or lack thereof), the lesson goes fine. Is going fine. Aonung sits in their usual seawall pool, legs crossed, patiently correcting Neteyam’s mistakes. And as much as rejection hurts, Neteyam is still there, tangible, touchable — Aonung finds that he can live with that. Maybe not right away, and maybe not even in a month, but sometime in the future. Someday. He clings to that hope like a reef tick.

Nalutsa, akula, hammerbrow. Tulkun. Sloapek, Neteyam lists, a little too slowly for Aonung’s tastes, but with a certain pride. Which, by the way, he has every right to feel — it took them ages to reach to this topic. Any progress at all is appreciated immensely. Aonung remembers the dark age of memorizing members of the family with a shudder.

Tsurak, he adds, demonstrating the hand motions. Neteyam copies him, clumsy and uncertain. Usually when that happens, Aonung would tug at his palms and pilot them through the right movements, but the thought of touching him now makes dread pool in the pit of his stomach. It frustrates him. He's been getting so good at this whole tactility thing, steadily adjusting to all of the contact, and now this happens. Back at square one.

It doesn’t help that Neteyam watches him expectantly, waiting for physical guidance, palms hanging half-outstretched in front of his chest. Like he’s a prolemuris caught in the act of stealing. Of thievery. Of robbing Aonung clean of his heart and neatly, affectionately dissecting it. And when nothing happens, Neteyam withdraws, looking vaguely embarrassed. More guilt is added to the already large pile of shame under Aonung's skin.

You are improving, Aonung signs, half-apologetically. As if a compliment would fix this mess — mess that seems to really only bother him. Do you want to practice chatting now?

Yes, Neteyam signs bluntly. It's his favorite part of the lesson, even though he is terrible at it. But he tries, hard, and Aonung would be a fool to not appreciate that. How was your— how was— high? Neteyam frowns in concentration. It’s like he’s stumbling over his own feet. Somehow, Aonung wants to laugh (with only a tinge of bitterness).

Neteyam draws a triangle in the empty space between them. It’s not a standard sign. Aonung shrugs, leveling him with an unimpressed look. Try another way.

Morning, Neteyam signs. Yesterday, morning. Where are—where were you?

In the forest, with Aoti, hiking, Aonung signs. Oh. He copies Neteyam, drawing an invisible triangle with his finger. Mountain? Did you mean mountain?

Yes. Neteyam almost beams at him. Aonung could really, really go without all of these performances. How was your hiking in the mountain?

Hike. On the mountain, Aonung corrects absentmindedly and tries to think of a plausible response. Terrible, I could not stop thinking about you? Lovely, I died on the way there. Why, wish you went with me? It was alright, I made it to the peak in one piece. Not great, you made everything worse. 

I wish you were never there.

It was okay and I hated it, is what Aonung signs instead, leaving the rest of his thoughts in the dark, despairing corners of his psyche.

Neteyam smiles at him. Big man in water, baby on land.

Don’t play these games, Aonung tells himself, as if Neteyam could ever, in good conscience, toy with him.

Could he?

Big man will break your skinny spine, Aonung messes around anyway, jokingly curling his lip to reveal his canines. Not quite a baring of teeth, not quite a smile. A subtle, sour in-between.

Neteyam lacks some vocabulary, but gets the gist of it anyway. Aonung hasn’t expected any less. I fought you before, he signs, and neither of them mention the thorough care Neteyam puts into signing fight correctly. To this day, Aonung hasn’t explained that incident to him. Now, he never will. You are sad.

You’re sad, Aonung says, annoyed by the oversimplification and also somewhat miffed because Neteyam is, in hindsight, completely right. That was a bad day. And I had to hold back because I didn’t want to hurt you and Lo’ak too badly. You’re all skin and bones, and, anyway, I’m stronger now.

Neteyam responds with silent, bubbling laughter and Aonung can’t help the sheepish grin that pulls at his face. He quickly wipes it off, but can’t find it in his heart to swat at him. Laughing underwater is one the stupidest mistakes anyone could make. Neteyam makes it every single time. Fool. He gets what he deserves. Satisfaction quietly pushes his affection aside (false; they coexist in the same space, no matter what Aonung says) as Neteyam chokes and surges upwards, to the surface.

I’m smarter, Neteyam tells him once he sits back down, and Aonung must be hallucinating, because his eyes are practically glowing in the semi-darkness of the pool.

Won’t help you when I can just crush your entire face. He makes a grabbing motion, as if pretending to flatten Neteyam’s head. With one hand. I’ll squash you.

Neteyam looks like he wants to sign I'd like to see you try or not if I stop you.

I can kiss your hand, is what he signs instead.

Aonung’s blood runs cold.

Excuse me?

I can and I would, Neteyam signs, as if to reassure him. As if! Then, because apparently Aonung needed not only a manifesto, but also a demonstration — a proof of concept, if you will — he pulls Aonung’s hand towards his mouth, and that is when Aonung has had enough.

He jerks his arm away and resurfaces. It's a curse. It must be a curse. Every time he comes to these lessons, something like that always happens. It's inevitable. He must've angered Eywa, it's the only reasonable explanation. He feels sick.

Neteyam bursts out of the water beside him, filling his ears with breathless chuckles. “Big man not so brave now, is he?” he teases him, flashing his teeth, and Aonung realizes it's nothing more than a bizarre joke.

He begins to doubt Neteyam's precious, golden morals.

Aonung’s heart sinks.

Toying with him.

“That was weird,” he says instead, eyes darting everywhere but Neteyam face, “Don’t do that again."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can make out Neteyam’s grin slipping, thinning, vanishing.

“I’m sorry.” Apology first. Bless his stupid manners. Aonung hates him (he doesn’t, he still doesn’t). “I was just kidding. I wouldn’t hurt you," Neteyam reassures him confusedly, as if it’s Aonung who’s being unreasonable.

“Just pick a side already: am I a brother or a lover?” Aonung snaps. The words burst out of his mouth and fly away before he can drag them back.

He hasn’t been thinking.

He hasn’t meant it.

(He has.)

He wants to take it back (yes, yes he does, and the shame of it nearly takes him apart, but doesn’t conceal the tiny nugget of curiosity in the back of his mind).

He wants to dive into the vast, open ocean, and disappear under the currents. Safe.

“How about… a friend?” Neteyam asks hesitantly, gentle now. It's a safe answer. A frustrating one. He smiles, apprehensive, and Aonung begins to suspect it’s a defense mechanism. “I think having Lo'ak as a brother is more than enough—” Oh.

That changes things. So. Not brothers. Friends. A mile away from what Aonung had wanted and barely different from what he'd originally got, save for one tiny, insignificant detail: he has a chance. It can grow into something more.

“—what, um, what does a lover have to do with it?” Neteyam jolts him back into the present. Aonung looks at him like he's stupid. Everything, obviously.

Unless.

A trickle of doubt drips down his spine. Then it turns into a stream. And then a river.

"What did you say, there, underwater?” Aonung asks, not breathing.

A flood of doubt. And growing suspicion. And, worst of all, deja vu.

“That I'd bite you?” Neteyam says helplessly, and doesn't seem to notice the way Aonung pales. “I just— I thought— Rotxo jokes like that with you all the time. I saw him pretending to chew your tail this morning. And then he actually ended up doing it — but I wasn’t going to, I promise.”

The puzzle pieces neatly fall into place. It’s just a stupid little mistake, bound to happen when one has an idiot for a student.

Bite.

Kiss.

I can just bite your hand. Thick hand and thick head. Thickheaded. Dumb. Aonung is an even bigger idiot than Neteyam.

In hindsight, it makes sense that the two words look visually similar, but in the moment, he is viciously furious at whoever created this language in the first place.

“Never mind. I misunderstood. You didn’t use the right sign,” he says, to clarify that he’s no weakling and would let Neteyam punch him in the face if only to prove that he could take it.  

“Oh,” Neteyam says. “What did I say instead?”

Aonung winces without meaning to. His mood sours, exasperated with Neteyam, and livid at himself. “Nothing. Not important.”

“Aonung—”

“I think that’s enough for today. We should go back.” He doesn’t plead (yet). Aonung scales the slippery stone surrounding them, dexterously avoiding Neteyam’s gaze, less dexterously climbing out of the seawall pool. His tail jerks to keep his balance and inevitably thumps Neteyam across his chest, who gently catches it in his thin hands and pushes it away before it can nail him in the face. Aonung very much wants to drown.

“Okay,” Neteyam, sounding a little hurt.

Aonung gracelessly plunges into the ocean, too far gone to care about appearances. His ilu obediently surfaces next to him when he calls for her. Before he can mount her, though, Neteyam’s hand seizes his shoulder. They bob in the water; a sea of discomfort.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I said something weird,” Neteyam says, meek in that cautious kind of way. As if Aonung was a dainty, fragile vase. “If it helps, I didn’t mean it. I don’t think I did.” He’s so painfully earnest. Aonung pulls himself together and tries to stop acting like a kid.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pointedly waits to be let go of. Neteyam seems to take the hint, releasing him.

“Did I insult you or something? I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry,” Neteyam repeats, caught between apologetic and completely lost.

The realization that he really, really cares about his feelings settles over Aonung like wet sand, irritating and uncomfortable. Refusing to leave. And yet, it warms something inside him. It also stirs up his apprehension. He stomps down on both.

“...No.” Aonung presses his lips together and steels his nerves. He's doing this only because Neteyam looks pathetic. Out of pity. Nothing more. “You said you wanted to kiss my hands.”

“Oh,” Neteyam says, softly.

The air feels contaminated. Polluted, somehow. It sticks to the walls of Aonung’s lungs, making him feel lightheaded. He is no longer sure why he had said it, only that he did and he can't take it back.

Was it worth it?

“I’m sorry,” Neteyam says for the millionth time that day. And then he laughs uncomfortably, watching Aonung like he expects him to follow. “Oh man, I would never do that. That’s ridiculous. That’s gotta be the funniest thing I’ve done all week — I would never do that, Aonung, I swear. Um. That’s just—it’s absurd. Really, can you even—”

“You can stop now,” Aonung snaps, in perfect sync with the silent crack of his heart. Anger rears its ugly head, tossing its ruptured horns. A little longer and it’ll break free of its containment. He climbs his ilu, determined to not let that happen.

Neteyam watches with worried eyes and Aonung instinctively closes off, shutting the metaphorical door in his face. His expression hardens, then turns carefully neutral, and falls into something between bone-deep exhaustion and his usual ire. It doesn’t fool anyone. Aonung doesn’t need it to. He just needs to keep it from getting worse.

They ride back home in silence.

Chapter Text

Somehow, Aonung gets better.

The two days after that terrible sign language lesson are hellish. He lies awake at night and silently begs Eywa to turn back time, so that he never said all those stupid things to Neteyam, never cast all of that vulnerability in the open, kept his soft, fleshy heart behind his ribcage, safe, beating, yearning, bruised. There is no physical pain to wallow in, only an ache in his soul. A persisting discomfort in the empty space behind his eyelids, between his bones, under his tongue, clinging to him. It tastes like shame.

Aonung throws himself head-first into his Iknimaya training, cancelling all further lessons he's had with the Omatikayan children. Rotxo had delivered the news. "He's very... busy," Rotxo had probably said, barely veiling his irritation at being used as a messenger boy, "he has to focus on the trials from now on." It messes up everyone's schedules. Tsireya has to step in to substitute Aonung's absence, but strangely enough neither her nor his father say anything to him. Tonowari only praises him for his commitment to the trials.

Neteyam seeks him out, probably, but no newcomer would never be able to find Aonung on an island where he had lived his entire life, unless Aonung wanted to be found. And he doesn't.

He quickly learns that sparring is an effective way of numbing one's mind from distractions. It's perfect. He can barely think anything beyond the typical duck, block, dodge when faced with his father’s spear, operating on instinct more often than not. His father sets a punishing pace, each spar faster and more difficult than the last — Aonung had long gotten used to being knocked into the sand — and then helps his son up afterwards, always with some obvious piece of advice that Aonung already knows. His father wishes well, of course. Sometimes that’s hard to appreciate.

So Aonung spars and labors and hikes and trains to the point that he drops unconscious as soon as he lies down in his marui and blissfully dreams of nothing. And the next day he does it all over again. And it works, because it effectively cuts all thoughts of Omatikayan boys with sad yellow eyes out of his mind.

“You don’t have to overpower me,” his father says one day, right after he sends Aonung to violently face-plant into the ground. “You just need to disarm me.”

“How am I even supposed to do that?” Aonung grumbles, dusting sand off his forehead. It's been a particularly frustrating afternoon. “You get a spear and I have to fight empty-handed. That's not fair.” His forearm hurts from when he blocked his father's strike earlier. Aonung bites back a groan as he rises back to his feet.

“A real enemy will not consider 'playing fair'.”

“Yeah, but," Aonung tries to argue. "can’t you just please give me my knife—”

His father swings with the blunt edge of his spear, aiming at Aonung’s gut. Aonung manages to block it with his forearm for the second time that day, overcome with sparks of sharp pain that quickly fizzle out. They're replaced with an ever-growing ache.

“You see?” Tonowari says, after Aonung blocks three more of his strikes, “You are getting better. Not good yet, but better.” His spear snakes behind Aonung's ankle, lightning-fast, and sweeps Aonung off his feet again.

Aonung coughs; some of the sand has gotten into his mouth this time, grinding against his teeth. “Thank you," he rasps.

He stands up, clumsily dashing past his father and testing some close-range combat. Aonung leaps, twists, and rotates his body to add some momentum to his flailing tail — he’s too short to reach his father's face, so he aims for his father’s hand instead. His tail connects, echoing with a resounding slap, but Aonung doesn't hit the spear out of his father's grasp.

Quite predictably, his father rewards his attempt by grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back, then quickly and effectively unbalancing him. Aonung crashes to the ground like a wave against the reef. Again. A helping hand appears in front of him, and he snarls in frustration. There’s sand in his nose now, too. His father ignores the outburst and nonchalantly pulls him up.

“That’s enough for today. We will continue tomorrow," his father says, and Aonung's eyes snap up in a bewildered stare.

“What? No,” he protests. It's too early. If they stop now— “I can keep going. It’s not even dark out yet.”

His father frowns at him in confusion. “We’ve been sparring all afternoon. It's been so long that you're getting sloppy,” he says, not without subtle amusement in his tone. “Besides, aren’t you and Tsireya supposed to take Jakesully’s children to the Cove of the Ancestors today? Or have you forgotten?”

Aonung, in fact, did not forget. It sat in the back of his mind all day. He'd been hoping to avoid that. “We don’t have to. It’s just that Tsireya insisted on it.”

“Then I insist, too. There is no harm in it,” his fathers says. “If they are to live with us as Metkayina, they must visit the Spirit Tree.”

“But I don’t have to be there,” he insists childishly. “Rotxo and Tsireya are going already, and Ewiwal and Anurai will probably join them, too.” Desperation seeps into his voice. “Can’t we keep sparring for just a little while longer?”

For a moment it looks like his father will refuse, his brows furrowing, his jaw set. Aonung prepares for the bitter taste of defeat. He can't face Neteyam yet. Not for a while. It’s cowardly. He knows. Guilt bubbles up inside him.

“Okay,” Tonowari says, and Aonung stares at him, wide-eyed.

He clamps his jaw shut before his father can change his mind. “Thank you,” Aonung says, even more relieved when he isn’t questioned further. The last thing he needs right now is an awkward discussion with his father on why he's been avoiding the Omatikayan children. His father probably already suspects something regardless, with that stupid, careful, deliberate gentleness he suddenly plasters all over his face. As if Aonung is a fragile little thing.

If only his father was just as kind when batting at him with his spear. Aonung straightens his spine and marches back in position.

“Only for a little while longer,” his father says.

“A little while,” Aonung agrees, already out of breath.

It just so happens that his training soon gets interrupted anyway.

The telltale noise of commotion has already distracted them from their spar, just as the sun disappears into the eclipse and leaves them standing on the beach in the steadily growing darkness. A frightened looking messenger tumbles over her own feet as she calls for Tonowari’s attention. She babbles something incoherent — Aonung catches maybe three words in total and doesn’t let himself mull over the rest because the messenger and his father instantly leave him behind. He has to break into a run to keep up.

Something is wrong.

The messenger — Kaori, she completed her Iknimaya three years prior — leads them to the far side of the village, near the shallows, where a crowd had already started forming. Torches cast ominous shadows onto the beach. Aonung spots Rotxo’s head bobbing in the water, Ewiwal and Anurai near him. The trip to the Spirit Tree must’ve ended early — they weren’t supposed to be back so soon.

He catches sight of Neteyam wading out of the water, cradling a bundle of gangly limbs, closely followed by three other Metkayinan children that occasionally help Aonung lead lessons. Their panicked ilus beat their flippers against the waves. Several of Aonung’s own neighbors cross into the shallows to soothe them. Tsireya runs out of the crowd in front of him, followed by someone none other than Jakesully. The bundle is passed from Neteyam’s arms into his.

It’s Kiri.

She isn't moving.

The Awa'atlu Metkayina part to let his father pass to the center of the commotion, and Aonung quickly follows him through the freshly-freed space. They arrive just in time to hear Neteyam’s rushed explanation.

“—fine for the first few minutes, but then she started shaking. She didn’t wake up after we broke the tsaheylu, she wasn’t even breathing until we helped her—”

“How long ago was this?” Jakesully’s eyes are intense, terrifying. Or terrified. Both.

“—Maybe fifteen minutes, we came back as fast as we could—”

Aonung’s mother barges through the crowd, shoving everyone aside before Aonung could even think to jump in. His parents exchange a couple of wordless looks, before she pushes Jakesully’s arms out of the way and briefly inspects Kiri’s unconscious body. Aonung can’t register what she’s saying. He wonders how it feels to see someone else drown. 

“Take her to your marui and make sure her airway stays open,” His mothers orders Jakesully, as Tonowari begins to send the onlookers home. Ronal suddenly meets Aonung’s eyes; he hadn’t realized she had noticed him. “Aonung, Tsireya, you come with me.” Her commanding voice spurs him into action, as Aonung finds himself following his mother while his father remains on the beach to disperse the crowd.

“What happened?” he barely has the breath to ask Tsireya, as all three of them proceed to their family pod. His mother may as well be sprinting. She really shouldn’t be, not since her belly started showing, and she looks like she's speed-waddling, but he cannot muster a laugh.

Everything feels so surreal.

Tsireya appears to be close to tears, or perhaps she’d already cried, and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t have time to think about it, either. They reach their marui in record time, as Ronal pulls out herbs and shells and all of her confusing tools and hands them off one by one to both of her children. Time seems to race past them as Aonung is sat down near the entrance with a bowl and ordered to ground unfamiliar seeds into a fine paste.

“Be thorough and do not rush,” his mother orders him, before leaving to dig through a large woven basket.

Aonung opens his mouth to ask why he’s doing it, and not Tsireya, his mother’s actual apprentice, but a brief glance at his sister shows him that she’s busy with an arguably more difficult task. He closes his mouth. Okay. Alright. This is what he must do now, it seems.

He has no way of understanding how well he made the paste when he eventually passes the bowl to his mother. She takes it without a word and then gives him three more errands before pushing another basket in his hands and tells him to deliver it to Jakesully’s and Neytiri’s marui. And to pass on a message that she’ll be there soon. Alright. He can do that, too.

Aonung can’t tell how much time has passed since Neteyam first brought Kiri out of the water, but it must’ve been a while, because the stars are out now. He doesn’t register the walk there, only that he arrives quickly, and the basket is taken out of his arms and the words spill out of his mouth and then he’s pushed out of the marui. He stands around helplessly, awkwardly, wondering if he’ll be allowed to quickly step back in and ask about Kiri. Probably not.

Minutes later his mother arrives with Tsireya in tow, and they’re let in without any issues. Aonung doesn’t follow them. He reckons he’s not needed anymore. That’s fine. He certainly doesn’t want to keep standing around like an idiot.

He wonders how Rotxo is doing.

It doesn’t take long to find him. Aonung notices him sitting on the edge of one of the nearby docks, knees pressed to his chest, staring into the water below. It’s quiet here. So much that Aonung’s soft footsteps on the creaking planks feel unbearably loud.

“Hey,” he says, once he sits down next to him.

There is something so wrong about seeing Rotxo as anything other than cheerful. His lips are pressed grimly together and he doesn’t turn to look at Aonung. “Hey.”

The question “are you okay?” sounds unbelievably stupid on Aonung’s tongue, and he silently debates whether to ask it. Usually Rotxo would crack a somber joke here or there whenever he’s going through the motions and it would take some of the edge off. It’s different now. Gently, Aonung asks, “What happened?”

He doesn’t expect a response. He’s rather surprised when he gets one. “We shouldn’t have gone to the Cove,” Rotxo mutters, still not looking at him. “Everything spiraled out of control so quickly.”

“Did… the Spirit Tree do that to Kiri?” Aonung asks hesitantly. He’s heard snippets of conversations about the entire incident here and there. They sound painfully made-up, purely fictional, but… He’s not so sure anymore.

“I don’t know,” Rotxo admits. They sit in silence for a few moments. “We all connected at the same time. Everything was going so well. I saw my mom.” He pauses. Aonung puts his arm around his shoulder. “Then someone broke my tsaheylu, and everyone was panicking, and Kiri was shaking underwater. And everything around her was flashing. We pulled her out, and she wouldn’t stop — she wouldn’t—”

He falls silent. Aonung gives him a reassuring squeeze and pretends not to notice as Rotxo subtly wipes at his face.

“She wasn’t breathing,” Rotxo continues, the tiniest of tremors in his voice, “and now she's still unconscious, and nobody knows why, and we should’ve never gone to the Cove, and what if she doesn’t wake up?”

“Don’t say things like that,” Aonung tells him fiercely, neck snapping to look Rotxo in the face. He grabs both of his shoulders. “My mom is the best Tsahik in the world. If there’s anyone who can help Kiri, it’s her. She’s there right now with Tsireya. I saw them go in.”

Rotxo doesn’t look convinced. “Did they tell you anything? About Kiri?”

“Not really,” Aonung admits. “I saw her before when I delivered my mother's tools. She looks the same. But it’s temporary. She’ll wake up soon enough, I promise.”

“Don’t say that. You have no idea what’s going to happen, and you don’t have to lie to me,” Rotxo says glumly.

“I’m not lying,” Aonung insists stubbornly. “I know my mom can help her. She hadn’t ever failed anyone before, has she?”

“I guess not.”

“She hasn’t. And Neytiri is there too — they say she’s a Tsakarem, but I think she’s really close to becoming a Tsahik. They’ll do everything they can.”

Rotxo emits a low, non-committal hum. It’s rather disheartened, but at least he’s not staring emptily at the water anymore. That’s good enough for now, Aonung thinks, as he stands up and pulls Rotxo after him, and everything else will be better by tomorrow, and everyone will be fine.

“Come on,” he tells Rotxo, arm draped around him, guiding him in the direction of Rotxo's marui. “Just go home and trust my mom to do her job. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rotxo responds, and he sounds earnest even if somber. He's quiet, before adding, with a little less melancholy, “— for some reason. I probably shouldn’t. Worst decision of my life.”

That’s better. “Asshole,” Aonung says affectionately, bumping their shoulders together before he leaves Rotxo at the entrance of his marui. “Just hang in there. I’ll ask my dad to let me have the morning off, alright? We can go visit Kiri. I can threaten Lo'ak into letting us in.”

“You’re too kind,” Rotxo says dryly.

Aonung smiles warmly at him. “I am. I’m not even going to tease you about Kiri today or tomorrow, that’s how kind I am. After that you’re on your own, though.”

Roxto grimaces. “Yeah, yeah. Try not to get lost on the way home, I know you’re scared of the dark.”

“I’ll do my best,” Aonung promises him.

Aonung ends up being right. By the time he stirs the next morning, Kiri is awake. All the diligent training (and the stress too, probably) seems to have caught up with him and completely swept him off his feet, though, and he sleeps right through the loud, foreign noise that had managed to rouse everyone else in the village.

Which brings him to the next point: there are real, living, breathing Sky-people and Dream-walkers in Awa’atlu right now.

Maybe Aonung is still dreaming.

Rotxo had shaken him awake and dragged him out to join the rest of the Metkayina on the same beach where Jakesully and his family landed several months ago. This time a large, shiny, Sky-person contraption has materialized on it. Apparently it flew here. Aonung remains skeptical; it’s hard to visualize this thing soaring in the air when it has no wings.

“Wonder what they even need from us,” Rotxo mutters, without breaking his gaze away from the strange thing.

Aonung only shrugs, watching intently as his father converses with the newly arrived Sky-people. He’d never seen them in real life, only heard stories. They’re so small, clothed in dark fabrics that cover their pinkish-brownish skin. So foreign. His tail curls and waves ever-so-subtly, betraying his discomfort; the situation leaves him on edge.

He’s not the only one. The rest of the Metkayina keep their distance. Aonung’s mother is surprisingly absent. That’s unusual — she should be here, by his father’s side, she’d never let Sky-people step foot on their island—

Unless…

“Rotxo,” Aonung calls, clasping a hand around Rotxo’s arm and pulling him away from the crowd. “Did you check on Kiri yet?”

He can see the exact moment when Rotxo’s eyes light up in realization. “No,” Rotxo says slowly, eyes darting, brows furrowing. “Do you think— did they—”

Yes, Aonung wants to say. Maybe. I don't know.

“Come on,” he urges, already breaking into a jog, and Rotxo instantly matches his pace.

It doesn’t take long to reach Jakesully’s marui, and Aonung’s suspicions are confirmed as soon as he catches sight of his mother stalking outside the pod. Her furious eyes meet his for a brief second, before she turns around and pushes her way back inside.

Precisely in the next second, a Dream-walker and a Sky-person tumble out of the marui, their hands full with more things that Aonung had never seen before. Jakesully follows them, looking sheepish. Both Aonung and Rotxo instinctively stop in their tracks, and quickly duck out of sight behind other pods.

That is when they run into Neteyam.

He looks like he’d been crying. It’s the one time when Aonung can’t find it in himself to tease him about it. Neteyam cradles a messily-woven basket in his hands — of course, he must’ve gotten kicked out like his father just did, sent away to do some stupid chore to keep him out of the way. Aonung knows the feeling.

He also wishes they’d taken their chances with the Dream-walker instead. Aonung stares at Neteyam, dumbfounded, at loss for words. Maybe if he focuses, he could spontaneously combust on the spot.

Rotxo, as always, comes to his aid. “Neteyam,” he says, as all three of them take a step back, “what’s going on?”

Aonung desperately ransacks his mind for something to say. Anything. But all he can see are Neteyam’s bloodshot eyes, that stupid basket, Neteyam’s trembling fingers. He’s so easy to read. Aonung can’t do this now. Come on. Focus. Focus . Say something comforting.

“Did you bring Sky-people to Awa’atlu?” It instantly comes off as accusatory. Aonung cringes, tries to correct himself: “Is it because of Kiri? Is that why they’re here?”

“Yes,” Neteyam says, avoiding Aonung’s eyes. Aonung can’t blame him. They’ve been avoiding each other for several days now. “Don’t worry about it — they’re our friends. You can trust them. They mean no harm.” He sidesteps around them, rounding the corner to go back to his marui. Rotxo falls in step with him, and Aonung follows suit. “They’ll leave as soon as they treat her.”

Once again, Aonung wonders what actually happened in the Spirit Cove. He wonders how it would’ve felt to see Tsireya swallowed by water, convulsing under the waves. The image alone makes him shudder.

“Everything will be alright,” Rotxo reassures, patting Neteyam on the shoulder, as if he himself wasn’t out on the docks yesterday, cold and scared and barely responsive. “We actually just saw them come out, though actually I think that’s because the Tsahik sacked them—”

“She understands Eywa better than them,” Aonung says quickly at Neteyam’s alarmed look. “And if there’s anyone who can heal Kiri, it would be her. She can do it. You just have to trust her.”

Someone calls Neteyam’s name before he could answer. The three of them swivel their heads to see the Dream-walker waving his arms from where he stood a good distance away, on the beach under the farther docks. The tiny Sky-person and Jakesully sit on some rocks next to him. They’re both looking at Aonung, who fights hard not to fidget under the spotlight.

“Thank you,” Neteyam says quickly, quietly, and finally meets Aonung’s gaze. Between the constant state of stress and apprehension Aonung had been in and the severity of the situation, the gesture is equal to being crowned king of the world.

Not really, of course, not when everything is still so dire, but… Nonetheless, it feels like the air between them became a little less awkward, a little less sad. It feels like the first star out on the dark sky, the newly-emerged chance to mend things.

"You're welcome," Aonung whispers.

As Neteyam parts with them and joins the strangers on the beach, the smallest spark of hope lights up in Aonung’s chest.