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Horrendous creatures, the both of them. Wild, untamed beasts united in spirit - once in body too - to both one another and nature herself.
The first of these monsters, as it often happens in tales, is the Mother; the tall, languid mother, whose forceful hands are capable of gifting both calamity and love, lethal one just as much as the other.
Well, women can be dangerous, monstrous creatures on their own. And the woman made out of the silk of the night, richly blue and equally as brilliant, stars shining through her in a game of fate, is the most monstrous of them all.
The second protagonist of this tale though, is none other than the eldest of her sons. The one which, amongst the four (five?) of them, takes the most after her. Neteyam is indeed her husband’s successor in body, blinded by his father’s light, capable of crashing into the tallest of mountains just to prove himself. Though, unbeknownst to him, what he truly is, is her inheritor. In mind, at least. In heart. He’s not aware, far from it, and Neytiri is allowing him to discover his own self by, well; himself. She’s herself absolutely aware of just how much her firstborn will eventually resemble her. The lights of the forest lights him up; lights his steps, fast and silent; his eyes, soulfully loving; his pity, deadly and untainted. She’s oftentimes watched him from afar as he connected to the Tree Of Souls, spending hours on end silently speaking to ghosts whose names she’ll never ask. And, most importantly, she’s watched him fly; watched, smiled, screamed in exhilarated joy, as he flew higher, and higher, as high as he could, as high as he would, before dropping down at the speed of sound. Free of, and from, all.
And Neytiri liked very, very few things more than she liked admiring her son as he slowly blossomed into a younger, kinder version of her. Just as Lo’ak was greedily taking after her Jake’s best and worst traits, Neteyam had taken ahold of her ferocious love, startlingly stuffing it deep within his heart. Little by little, she allowed this hidden truth to come out by itself. Though there was one specific occasion she usually took advantage of, in order to have him reveal the depths of his soul to their surrounding ecosystem.
Dance is an essential component of the Na’vi’s cultural patrimony; no matter Reef or Forest, Tsurak or Ikran; dances had been birthed everywhere, as circumstances in which the emotions of theatre fluidly mix with music-induced trances, creating incorporeal tales out of the dancers’ moving bodies.
A circumstance in which the Self is capable of letting loose in the same way violence would allow it to. Minus, of course, the lack of spilt blood of it all.
And Neytiri, in the midst of her turbulent adolescence, had grown into quite the fine dancer. Not because of hours upon hours of studies upon her own movements’ gracious beauty - hours which she rather spent accompanying fauna, flora, bow and arrows.
Oh no, Neytiri’s ability was worthy of praise because of her talent as storyteller. Whatever role she would choose to interpret, her soul would then go with it. Fusing with her brothers-in-Eywa, screaming the Ikran’s tale, and grinning the Viperwolf’s grin, her body trembling in anger and compassion alike.
And her son, her beloved firstborn, whose face her fingers are now painting, is just as good as she is. He could become ever better, he has all the potential for it, though she really hopes he won’t. To be free of ones repressed emotions, one must learn how to progressively healthily liberate them; festivities and dance performances, capturing the trembling of the Heart and periodically bursting it all out, must not become one’s only outlet.
Neytiri’s fingers glide over his face, minutely adjusting the last details, in the patient kind of way she had inherited upon her firstborn’s first ever wail. Neteyam’s ears twitch at every sound, and she can’t help but have her own focus melt into the softness of a smile, as she caresses the bridge of his nose with the side of her longest finger. “You seem happy.” She points out, kindly taunting. Neteyam’s orange-tainted eyelids open up, an unhidden grin following suit, still fluffed up by childhood’s hold. “It has been long, mother.” The boy acknowledges, focusing his own gaze upon his mother’s features. Upon a forehead more relaxed and lips more curled up than he’d seen on her in a long time.
“Are you not nervous?” She asks, her feline eyes wide, wide open, feeling herself even younger than her already young age, excitement flowing through her veins, and accelerating with every beat of her’s and Eywa’s conjoined hearts. Neteyam curtly shakes his head no - just once - iridescent beads reflecting the last rays of light. “The Metkayina, though good and generous, do not respect us. The Olo'eyktan’s son thinks us weak, and he’s not the only one. When the two of us dance” Neytiri puts her hand on her son’s head, caresses his braids. “we connect, with whoever watches us. I am not blind, I know we do. I feel we do.” He waits a bit, struggling to control the excitement slowly taking it’s toll on his body’s relaxation. “I want to show them. In honour of you, and my father, and my sisters, and my brother.” Strong boy. Brave boy.
Neytiri grins again, puts her forehead on his. “We will show them. My son.”
And show them they did.
Oh, they sure did.
Beautiful and glorious, the mother and the son, their two shadows extending from the side of their fire, onto the lit up sand and into the ocean. Blind to the vastity of the world outside of their own. To the dozens of fires, each belonging to a different Awa’atluan family. Blind to gazes and whispers, to Ronal’s proud, intrepid smile, to the quantity of eyes that slowly rise.
Feral and tragic, the two of them; pupils thin, all fangs and grace. On opposite sides of the Olo'eyktan’s fire, as the tune of voices, conches and strings reverberates to them, from the musicians circling around in the sand.
And, not only music, but eyes too.
Towards the two of them, from the smaller fires nearby, puzzled Metkayinian gazes - of all ages and belongings - start observing. The children first; then the parents following suit to catch their insolence, inadvertently allowing their own, impudent eyes to stop by for a bit. Mouth gaping at the spectacle; the spectacle of mother and son. Conches and strings play out, rhythm getting loud, louder than before, louder than ever; and, as the flames dance, so do they. Neytiri, iridescent plumes hanging from her arms, jolting all over, jumping and taking so long to land back that one could almost think her on the verge of taking flight. Screeching, and bending, and tilting her head as she curiously observe her surroundings, hostile in the most gentle of ways. Her body speaks about Ikrans. It talks about home. And nests, hidden in the sky. And bonds, crafted for life. And the feeling she has when air screeches all around, when the forest is upside down, when the sky is inside out, when Na’vis walk on the top of her and the stars follow her route. She too, at that point, screeches out; loud, decibels and decibels too loud, emitting sounds no biped being should ever make. She then furtively bends, her tail getting lower on the ground; and she is now a mother, protective and ready to strike, her eggs hidden behind her back.
None other dare dance next to her. The stage has been set, and all can feel the palpable, omnivorous risk of being skinned by the creatures that inhabit the territory, if only they dared try and step into it.
Not only the mother though; the son too, is as dangerous as is. Transfixed in a world of his own; a totally different one, one he was only now getting to know. The Tsurak is to the Metkayina what the Ikran is to the Omatikaya. Proof of growth, proof that one has become a man; the objective that most children strive towards, full of awe at the sight of their eldests pushing towards the sun. And, now that he is Reef and no longer Forest, now that he has a new clan to make proud, he screams his want out loud; his personal, ambitious, objective. He became a man once, the day of the first tsaheylu with his Ikran. Here, he is child again; and he’ll need to prove himself, once more. He’ll do it. He’ll do it all the times he needs to.
And so, he dances to the beat of the Tsurak’s hiss, filled to the brim with the creature’s soul. All the while, showing all-that-he-is to the clan that has welcomed him and his family. He tells the tale of all that he wishes to be; in the loud, unfathomable “thank you” of a to-be warrior. His flexible tail moves to the rhythm, agitated, aggressive; left and right, flows through the water, modifies the direction of his movements. He’s mad, mad to the brim, a predator apt of seeking others’ worth and judging them upon it. Gone is the brave, obedient boy. His pupils disappear upon themselves, eyeballs rotating to the back of his skull as he grins out and screeches out, iridescent beads glistening and reflecting the light, copper decors and sunset makeup emulating the anatomy of the great creature. He wrecks, and twists and snaps to the music, one with fins, fangs and wings alike. He bends backwards, sticks his tongue out just as he has seen the Reef People do, rising then up again with a growled roar, under Tonowari’s loudly raucous gaze. Even the Olo'eyktan’s son, insolent, undiplomatic Ao’nung, has to concede and mutter to his sister that the Forest People maybe do have some talents of their own. Tsireya nods, silently, mouth agape but eyes shining bright in awe-full amusement. Rotxo, from his own detached little pyre, had jumped onto a fallen tree’s trunk in order to get a better view of the unexpected spectacle.
The Reef People are fast and nimble underwater, but slower, though powerful, on grounds. All the gazes directed at Neytiri and Neteyam’s displays of agile predatoriness should not be blamed.
Hell - Jakesully himself, in all of his cloned Omatikayan physique, could never even try and undergo the process during which his wife and son seem to transform. Thick-skulled and hardly malleable, he joined the Na’vi long after his formative years, too long to gain such suppleness of mind.
Lo’ak, third born, second son, is blocked by his skull’s rationality and his ribs’ rebellion. Angry guy, all of Jake in all of him, his shoulders are less slumped and his chin is raised higher. He forgets rivalry, for once, and proudly, unequivocally defies all that surround him, defying others to defy them.
Kiri, second born, first daughter, keeps herself calm, refined all in all by dignity and wisdom. Though that does not prevent sweet smiles from folding her fire-lit cheeks, every once in a while, ears twitching as the screams capture her attention.
Spider, their sibling-from-the-sky, brother only in their father’s eye, had once wanted to learn; one mere gaze from Neytiri made him change his mind. Though far now, none could doubt that he would have loved the spectacle.
And Tuk, little Tuk, lastborn daughter, lastborn child, has, hopefully, been too protected. They all hope she has too much innocence and gentleness in her heart to even harbour a single ounce of hatred towards the word that surrounds her; it is unneeded for her too to fall into the trap of growing up. She hangs onto her father’s lap, curious and watchful, strangely quiet as her eldest brother and her own mother elevate their whole family’s pride on a whole other level, all by themselves.
Though, that she does not know.
All she does, is recognise their beauty, wishing, someday, to imitate it herself.
Some things transcend Reef and Forest. Some elements of the individual’s self - most of them in fact, though that is not a discussion meant for today - transcend the road one walks onto, and the ancestral path one follows.
Some things are only birthed out of Mind and Love and Soul and Self; transcending the difference between the Tsurak and the Ikran.
Neytiri and Neteyam dance amongst the fires; mother and firstborn, monsters for once and for all.