Chapter Text
When the Sully family arrives at his village, Ao’nung decides that he dislikes all of them. Rather only the war hero’s sons – both of them if he can help it. They’re from the forest and he expects them to not last long here. The entire family has weak tails and thin arms with eyes used to spotting prey in the dark but not under the water.
Surely, they are only used to the trees while the sea will swallow them whole.
That has to be the truth, forest people do not belong by this sea, he tells himself.
The first time his father lets him on an ilu, Aonung had barely been able to hold his breath – then barely able to reach the bottom of the seafloor. What looks like a few strokes turns out to be more, then far too many as if the very sand under the water is slipping through his hands.
Yet he is the chief’s son.
There is no room for failure, there are expectations. One of these days he will be the one leading his village. They deserve the best, nothing less. All Aonung needs to do is to prove that yes, he is enough.
It sounds so easy when said out loud.
Even his father has told him that it will be all fine once he’s in the water again. At the end of the day, the sea around their village is an extension of all of them. Aonung should know these waters as well as he knows the fastest pathways to get back home in the village.
(His sister, Tsireya, doesn’t have the same problem. She’s one born for the sea. He can only watch as she dives to see all that lives under their village. This is their home, yet it’s as though one of them fits here.)
His next attempt on the ilu is the same as his first attempt and he wishes he weren’t here at all. What is the point if he’s going to make a fool of himself?
“Can I not do this tomorrow?” he asks. What he doesn’t say is what he has to do to please his father. There are expectations that he cannot reach no matter how hard he stretches his arms.
“Make sure to try harder tomorrow,” Tonowari tells him that night. His mother and sister are off talking on their own. “You are the future, son.”
“I know.”
“That means that you must be the best, show the others what they can become.”
Aonung can only nod, something seemingly lodged itself into his throat.
It turns out that his initial assessment is correct, the forest children do not keep up. They’re all terrible divers, watching Lo’ak fumble off the ilu is something that almost makes him laugh.
(He would have, had he not also done the same the first time.)
“They’re terrible divers. Even a five year old from here could do what they’re doing faster.”
Tsireya glares at him and he glances away.
“You cannot say that about them, they’ve only just arrived,” she scolds. It’s funny how in moments like these where she resembles their father. “It’s barely been a week.”
We only had three days to learn how to dive, Aonung almost retorts.
“I hope they will not be useless,” he says instead.
She sighs, running a hand over her forehead. At times like this, he wonders why his father insists that they are the ones who must teach them how to survive. Surely, it’s his sister who should be doing this – she has the patience.
“They won’t be, watch, they’ll pick it up soon enough.”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Watch,” she says it as if it were a dare, one that she’s going to win.
“Bet.”
A month later, he watches as the Sully boys finally manage to reach the ocean floor. To take in the reefs living right next to their village.
He’s not jealous, not at all.
“I told you,” Tsireya whispers to him once they are away from the Sullys. “They learn quickly.”
“They’re children,” Aonung replies, rolling his eyes. He hates how she talks about the forest na’vi, as if they were part of their village the whole time. “Of course, they can pick up things faster than anyone else.”
She scoffs. “Yet we were younger when we first started learning. I remember it taking us longer.”
There’s no answer he can deflect to that.
It’s not that he hates the Sullys, not really, Kiri and Tuk are fine. The two of them stick to their own, are nice enough to talk on their own. He has no issue with them.
The issue is with the two brothers – Neteyam and Lo’ak. On good days, the two of them are sticking together to tackle onto whatever training they are assigned. On bad days, Tsireya takes one of them and he is left with the other. Neteyam is fine, learns fast enough on his feet and listens. Aonung can tolerate him enough.
What’s worse is when he’s assigned to teach Lo’ak how to ride the mount. He hopes he never has a younger brother if given the chance.
Another day, more failed attempts. Aonung has half the heart to ask if the other boy wants a break. Surely swallowing this much water must be a damper on his spirits.
One does not learn how to ride an ilu in one day. Or one week. The exception is Kiri, but she is the exception and thus should not be counted.
(It took him two months to figure it all out.)
“Again,” Lo’ak hisses at him as if there’s something to prove. “I can do it. I think I have it figured out.”
This is what he does not understand.
“Again? You’re kidding.”
“Call it over.” Lo’ak’s voice offers no place for disagreement. “Aonung, please. One more attempt and we can go for lunch.”
He sighs, calls the ilu over.
Lo’ak smiles, gives him a nod of thanks and something twists in his chest. For someone who isn’t even fully na’vi, the other boy is one who seems to want to breathe in their way.
His way of living.
He watches as Lo’ak bonds with the ilu (for the fifteenth time today) with an unreadable expression on his face. The creature roars, thrashes about in the waves.
“You cannot learn how to ride an ilu through sheer determination alone,” he comments. It’s true, his father told him years ago.
“Watch me.”
A couple moments later, the forest na’vi is spitting out water with a grimace on his face. He stifles his laugh, fails, and is rewarded with Lo’ak’s glare. Part of him wonders if the other boy can even smile or laugh at all.
“Same time tomorrow?” Lo’ak proposes once they are back in the village and it’s that moment when he decides that he hates him again.
“Ask Tsireya,” he replies coolly. “Or Rotxo.”
“Are you busy or something after lunch or something?”
No. “Yes. Chief’s son, I gotta help out with hunting.”
Lo’ak almost looks disappointed at his response. For what reason, he doesn’t know and also does not wish to know.
“I don’t know what I did to warrant you disliking me this much,” Lo’ak off-handedly comments instead. Then: “Do I offend you?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. There’s no reasonable answer to a question like that.
They are not friends; he will make sure they won’t be – at least not anytime soon.
A two weeks later, Lo’ak reaches the seafloor without much trouble. Neteyam joins a few hours later. He watches as they rejoin on the surface, clapping their hands together.
“Race you to the bottom,” Lo’ak tells his older brother with mirth in his eyes. “Last one down gets cleaning duty.”
“Oh, you’re on baby brother.”
A month. It only took them half of the time it took him to figure out how to reach the ocean bed without the dread that something from the depths was going to swallow him whole.
He can only watch on his ilu. Surely, they have not also figured this out as well-
Aonung is dead wrong.
Lo’ak is there with Tsireya, telling her that he can do it. He has no idea how many hours has passed.
“Again.” He overhears the other boy say again. It’s always that word or something similar.
Again. One more go. One more time. Again!
He doesn’t know what Lo’ak has figured out but he’s on the ilu without falling off and shouts the moment it leaps out of the water. A moment later, Kiri joins him.
The two of them aren’t even fully na’vi, yet- yet- they take to the sea far better than Aonung can. If this becomes their home, then who is he? He is born here; he should be the one who understands how all this works.
Not some usurper.
Aonung turns away, eventually finding Rotxo on one of the small island rocks. He attempts to explain why he’s feeling like this. Why watching the Sullys excel at what he cannot makes his blood boil.
“Is it so unreasonable?” he finally asks after his rant is over.
Rotxo looks as if he’s grown a second head. “I don’t know but it sounds like you’re jealous.”
“I’m not,” he retorts far too fast. “They shouldn’t be here.”
A beat.
An idea forms in his head, surely- He’s seen in work firsthand. Obviously, it will come with a lecture from his father, but for a moment, it seems like a decent option. A stupid one.
“You’re going to do something about it, aren’t you?” Rotxo groans. “Aonung-“
“They’d stop showing off though.”
His best friend face palms, turns away. “Don’t come crying to me if someone throws a punch at you.”
“I know this hand is funny,” Lo’ak humours him, wiggling his fingers. There’s a way in how he says it, something similar to again! yet different as if there’s a fire in his voice. “Look, I’m a freak. Alien but I can do something really cool. Watch.”
He laughs. What does this usurper have to show? It would be far better if they left. This is his home, and no one else’s.
“First I ball it really tight like this… then-“
The punch comes flying at him, far harder than he expects and before he even knows it, Lo’ak is on him.
“It’s called a punch, bitch! Don’t ever touch my sister again-“
Before he even knows it, everyone is trying to throw a punch at each other. Anything to wrangle them apart is a far cry. Aonung’s not even sure when Neteyam joins them, the whole thing soon reaching a level of a small brawl.
(He probably deserved the punch when he thinks back. Yet the anger doesn’t disappear. Not completely.)
What he doesn’t expect is for Lo’ak to apologize, sheepish if there’s a word for it. Fuck, Aonung would argue that the other boy doesn’t even truly sound sorry. He accepts said apology either way, not like it’s going to suddenly change their relationship.
Yet there’s that voice in his head, one that has enough power that he decides that he should lead the other boy outside of the reef. A challenge.
It’s as they ride on over on their ilus when he feels as though Lo’ak has always been one of them. Someone from the reef rather than from the forest.
A long-lost friend of sorts. Perhaps in another life, the two of them grow up together.
(Be it friends or something more.)
It’s a stupid thought.
He hates the other boy, hates him for picking up what he could not in the same amount of time. And does not understand why Lo’ak wants to prove to others that he and Kiri do belong. Part of him wishes he were the one from the forest, flying must be so much easier compared to swimming.
What scares Aonung is the thought that he wants to be another son to the Sullys.
He supposes it’s why he leaves Lo’ak outside of the reef. Another life is not this one, will never be this one. As they ride away on their ilus, Aonung finds himself looking back, a mass of emotions twisting in his chest.
(This is wrong.)
Aonung glances back, part of him almost wishing that Lo’ak will be there the next morning. If the other boy is lucky, no akula will be patrolling the waters at this time.