Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is nothing quite like a songcord back on Earth.

Even though he is now clan leader, Jake learns some of the traditions of his People almost at the same time that his children do: Neytiri makes him sit down in the older children’s history lessons and listen to the teaching songs, while Mo’at talks him through a leader’s duties, what he must learn and never forget. It is her who helps him braid his own songcord; a lifetime of stories is interwoven in the threads of one, in between beads and crystals, smiles and tears. He learns that songcords are tangible memories; they preserve what must not be forgotten, the big moments and the small ones, the beginnings and the endings.

He learns too, that it’s a parent’s duty to sing the first notes of their child.

His children's first notes go something like this:

Neteyam’s song starts with a laugh. He arrives at the dusk of times of Great Sorrow, when the dust has settled and the light starts to sneak in, and the first notes of his song are sung loud and bright, in joy and relief. His mother sings proudly, with a smile.

Kiri’s song arrives suddenly, and as a surprise. Her song is the quiet melody hidden in the wind, in the animals’ call, in the rainfall. Her first notes are a hum, a whisper. Her mother sings with eyes wide, in open awe.

Spider’s song starts in the stars, in between pieces of lab equipment, just after the last kiss of a mother he will never get to properly meet. His melody is unsure and out of tune at the beginning, but it grows now sure of its place. His mother sings in welcome, from the heart.

This is how the Sullys’ songcord starts.

However, it also starts like this:

In fearful expectancy. In the uncertain eyes of two young warriors who don’t know if they have enough gentleness left in themselves to offer.

In the unknown, in questions that will remain unanswered for years to come. In moments they won’t have an explanation for.

In the arms of a stranger that held you only once, and decided that war had to come first. In excuses made, in decisions harshly taken.

They will not admit it, and will not let it define them, but their first notes are haunted by war.

Neytiri’s own song goes like this: it starts with lullabies to fall asleep that have been sung among the Omaticaya for generations, soon joined by the playful melody of children’s games, of stories told in the teaching songs; it continues with the thrill of learning how to hunt, the heavy drums of becoming a warrior. It echoes in pain with the loss of her sister, her father, her home.

Her melody flares up in battle, in victory and relief. It becomes interlaced with her mate’s and, as of now, with her children’s.

Three new lives. Three new songs.

When she thinks back on her childhood, some of Neytiri’s first memories are of her parents singing: she can still hear Mother’s hums, Father’s deep voice and, time later, Sylwanin’s first attempts at joining them. She looks down at her children, back at Hometree after their communion, and hopes their memories will be the same.

Neytiri sings as she starts braiding each songcord carefully, the way Mother taught her when she first knew she’d be having a baby. She wasn’t quite expecting to have to make three at the same time, but can’t exactly say she regrets it; the children have all fallen asleep, all placed next to one another, and she sneaks a glance towards them and her mate every now and then in between her work.

Jake is working on his own, adding three different beads to his songcord. It’s still short, like a child’s, but already filled with many great things. Her mate’s song is a powerful one, a warrior’s one; the three beads mark the start of what will be a softer melody, a gentler one.

She looks down at her work and sees what she’s done so far: the knots were tied by her and Jake at the Tree of Souls, blessed by Mother in welcome of the new family to the clan.

You are now not only two-in-one, but five-in-one. She’d said. We see you, the five of you and the whole you make, and the clan embraces you as such. She’d pulled them apart after, held each of her grandchildren once, and said in words meant just for them, Your children are gifts from the Great Mother. Never forget it.

She won’t.

Each songcord is different, even as short as they still are: Kiri has an extra bead to represent Grace, Neteyam has a special knot to mark him as the firstborn, while Spider has a crystal at the start, like Jake’s does, to portray their coming from the stars.

(Spider’s ought to have an extra bead too, in addition to hers and Jake’s, but that is something she will not even think of. Spider is hers, and she refuses to share him with someone who does not deserve it.)

A sudden noise brings her back to the present: in their crib, Kiri mumbles in between dreams, and presses herself closer to Spider at the same time. She watches Jake get closer to them, carefully rearrange Kiri so that she doesn’t end up accidentally on top of the other two, and check Spider’s mask to reassure himself that it is working properly.

Neytiri watches him watch them for a moment, seemingly unaware of her eyes on him, lost in the sight of their children. Taking her time to do so, she puts the three songcords aside, and goes to sit down next to her mate.

Jake turns to look at her, grabs her hand as soon as she’s next to him, and smiles at her in that dumb way of his.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he kisses the hand he’s holding, to then later kiss her on the mouth. She gives him an odd look, and he laughs. “Really! Nothing, I’m- I’m just happy. I never thought I-”he cuts himself off, but she understands. It’s a feeling they both still share. “I’m just very happy.”

Neytiri looks at her mate, at her children; at the way Kiri cuddles in between her two brothers, at the way Neteyam sleeps with a smile on his face, at the way Spider fits in perfectly, even when she feared he would not, and Neytiri realises she is, too. Even after everything.

She is quite happy.

Chapter Text

Neytiri wakes to the sound of laughter, bubbly and bright, along with the voice of her mate. For a small moment, eyes still closed, her mind wanders, and she thinks back on the night before.

Spider had woken up the moment he felt the atokirina’ on him, for once not trying to touch the new and shiny thing that stood on his path. She and Jake watched him follow it carefully with his eyes, and had smiled in relief when they heard him laughing as it flew away. His laughter had continued the moment Jake bent down to pick him up, Kiri carefully held in his other arm, and his siblings had joined him seconds later.

Their laughter had been contagious, and the parents had echoed their children almost without thinking.

“It is a good sign,” one of the elders had said, a pensive look in her eye as she watched Neytiri hold Neteyam and Jake pepper kisses on Kiri and Spider. “Laughter is always a good sign.”

She had exchanged looks with her mate then, a half smile dancing on his lips, and held onto those words.

She stirs, shaking away sleep from her body and mind, and opens her eyes.

The sight that welcomes her makes a smile appear on her face without permission: Jake is holding their daughter, mumbling things she can’t quite hear. She gets up with a hunter’s grace, quiet, but she knows Jake has noticed it by the way he shifts, shoulders relaxed. She’s learning to read him, she thinks, in the same way she learned to read the sky for signs of rain, the paths traced in the forest when she first became a hunter. There will come a day where she will look at him and just know but, for now, these little moments, these first signs, are enough.

She leans her head on his shoulder once she reaches their side, looking down at Kiri: her daughter's eyes are wide open, lost in the sky above them.

Her laugh grows louder when she notices Neytiri.

Jake smiles at her, but immediately goes back to Kiri. He is enamoured, Neytiri can tell, holding her with a care she had rarely seen in him before.

“Want to say hello to mom, is that it, little one?”

He still has things to learn, however.

“She is hungry, Jake.” She extends her arms, stifling a laugh at his expression when he passes Kiri over.

“Oh, of course.” He looks down at the crib, where Neteyam is stirring and Spider remains asleep. “Soon she won’t be the only one hungry, I think.”

He softly caresses Neteyam before going to do the same with Spider. His hand towers over blond hair and Neytiri almost feels how they realise one important thing at the same time. He looks up at her, and in his eyes she sees reflected a question they probably ought to have asked themselves before: how exactly are they going to feed him?

Among the Omaticaya, babies who stop feeding from their mother’s breast are usually eased into other foods through mashed fruits and milk mixed with herbs, but they can’t do that with Spider: she vaguely remembers Grace telling them about the differences between them and the Sky People, which included things they eat and don’t, but is not sure enough to identify what is safe enough for her child to eat. And even if she or Jake knew and were sure of it, they do not have a way to feed him without taking his mask off.

She will rectify her lack of knowledge soon but the mask, she knows with certainty, is an absolute must.

“I’ll, I’ll take him back to the base,” Jake says, after a moment that feels too long. He picks him up, securing him in his chest, and moves to leave.

Neytiri has one irrational moment of wanting to stop him, to make him stay, to make both stay right next to her where she can see them and keep them safe. But she doesn’t move, barely reacts when Jake kisses her cheek and promises to come back soon, hopefully with a long-term solution, and promptly takes off.

She is left with her daughter in her arms and her son waking up, a bad feeling in her heart.

The night before, just after they put their children down to sleep, Jake and Neytiri sat down in front of the other and talked.

It had taken hours before they fell asleep, soft words (and fears and questions and doubts) exchanged under the cover of darkness.

(What if we get it wrong

What if I am not ready for this

What if we fail

What if, what if, what if)

Now, with Spider strapped to his chest, wrapped in a handwoven blanket, one of Jake’s arms on him while the other guides his ikran, he wonders how he managed to screw it up so quickly.

Before the children’s First Communion, all interactions with Spider happened at the base, where the kid could breathe without aid and so could they, as long as they didn’t remain inside for long. Kiri hadn’t been born yet, the child-size rebreathers hadn’t been ready, and it was easier to just take Neteyam with them to the base rather than try and take Spider out. His Communion with Eywa had been the first time he spent the whole night outside.

Checking his mask as he lands at Hell’s Gate, Jake half wonders, half berates himself about things they probably should have done before.

Norm comes out running in half panic, until his eyes land on Spider and Jake’s sheepish looks and he just stands there, holding his face in his hands for almost a full minute before Spider loudly announces that he has woken up and wants to eat.

The coming weeks follow much the same.

Grace’s books become a blessing during that time: her studies on Pandora’s flora include edible plants and fruits for humans, which they have been introducing slowly to Spider under the careful watch of the scientists: it involves scans, tests and studies that mildly remind him of his time with the Marines. Jake dreads the day they have to introduce him to meat.

The mechanic that developed his rebreather is working on a nasal cannula connected to a mechanism that works like the one on his mask, but in a way that would allow him to eat outside as long as he breathes only through his nose. It’s a long time coming for that, however, since Spider is still too small to even try it.

Step by step, Jake thinks, fighting to not adopt the same pinching the bridge of his nose habit that Norm has. It’s a losing battle.

He spends his days going back and forth between Hometree and Hell’s Gate, sometimes spending the night since the scientists don’t love the amount of time Spider is spending with the mask on, and it's taking its toll on him and Neytiri: he is not as present among the clan as he should be, and he is missing time with his other children. Sometimes he takes Kiri with him and Spider, stands in front of the pod that houses Grace’s body, and tells both of them stories about her mom, about how smart and brave she was. Spider tends to get easily distracted, and Kiri is still too small to understand him -never mind his mix of Na’vi and English- but sometimes he swears he sees her paying special attention to his words in those moments.

Every time they return, Neytiri demands Spider’s presence in her arms immediately. She passes him Neteyam and Kiri and hugs Spider close the rest of the evening, as if to remind herself that he is there, and hers. Jake gets the feeling, it’s getting more difficult to part from them every morning.

And yet, so far, this arrangement works, in a clear this-is-going-to-blow-up-sooner-rather-than-later way, but it works.

Until it doesn’t.

“Neytiri.”

“Mmhm.”

“Neytiri, look.”

She finally looks up from where she’s been looking at Neteyam and Kiri roll on their back to their bellies, and vice versa, as if enraptured, and Jake laughs at the way her eyes open wide in surprise at the sight: Spider is standing up on wobbly legs, arms extended to keep his balance, look of concentration on his tiny face. Jake has one hand positioned behind him, ready to catch him if things go awry, but it soon becomes clear Spider won’t need it.

Even though Jake has quickly come to realise Na’vi kids grow so much faster than human ones, Spider still has one advantage over his siblings: age. A year and some older than Neteyam and Kiri, plus what already looks like a strong sense of will and sheer stubbornness, has him been trying to walk for a while now.

“C’mon, kiddo,” Jake says; Spider has been standing up by himself recently, supporting himself with table legs and tree roots, but hasn’t quite gotten to take that first step. “Go on, you can do it.”

They wait with bated breath: little by little, one foot in front of the other, Spider makes his way through the small distance between Jake and Neytiri, whose smile hasn’t done anything but grow. She opens her arms once he gets closer, makes an aborted movement with them when Spider stumbles, but doesn’t fall and merely starts laughing, Neytiri joins him seconds later.

Spider reaches her then, and she picks him up with a smile.

“He stood up today, at the lab,” Jake tells her as she peppers him with little kisses. “I was crouched down and he pulled my tail to do so,” he grimaces at the memory, but Neytiri only laughs harder. “I picked him up afterwards, I figured it was something we both would want to see.”

Her eyes meet his, a shadow passing over them. These little moments, lost to one or the other -Neteyam’s first burst of laughter, Kiri’s first mumbles, Spider trying new foods- are taking its toll on them; times like this, where the five of them are together and conversation between him and his mate flows easily, are becoming rarer, which Jake hates. He hates the way sometimes he looks at Neytiri and doesn’t know what to say, hates the way he feels himself split in two, hates the fact that he’s missing parts of his children’s lives he vowed to be there for.

Hates the fact that this doesn’t affect only them.

A great many things shadow over Jake every day, and the empty space left behind by Tsu’tey is one he feels the most heavily: of all the new roles he has to fill, being Olo’eyktan is the one for he tries his hardest, and the one in which he feels more his own lack, like stepping into shoes that are too big for him and do not let him walk properly. The clan is not happy with him not being present, an absent leader marks a weak leadership, and he knows Mo’at standing in for him soon won’t be enough.

Jake himself is not happy with it: he doesn’t like going back to the base, doesn’t like the way his skin itches with the reminder of who he was within those walls, of the things he did. It’s an odd feeling, only increased by the pitying looks of the scientists, by the way their eyes beg him to just leave Spider there. It would be easier for everyone, and it’s the one solution Jake is not willing to even contemplate.

“This is not done, families are not meant to be split in two.” Neytiri is the one who breaks the silence; her tone is harsh, bringing him out of his own head. “You have to be here. You both have to be here.”

Jake agrees wholeheartedly, watching her pull Spider closer to her chest, one hand going for her other children. He looks and looks, and wants.

The question is just how.

Taking a deep breath, Jake goes to sit next to his mate and makes a proposal.

“We could build something like the shack for him at Hometree.” Norm had said, understanding reflecting in his eyes. Spider had been on the floor, placed where little hands could not reach sensitive tails, and Norm had spoken out of the blue, but his tone betrayed that it was something he had been thinking for a while. He continued under Jake’s open stare. “We could make it so you both could get in, but it would be a place for him to breathe without needing the mask.”

He had said to breathe, he meant to eat, to sleep, to live.

“The clan won’t like it. She won’t like it.” Neytiri’s tolerance for Sky People related stuff was limited to Spider and Spider’s needs only; technically, this could count as something Spider needs, but…

“I told you it was not going to be easy, Jake.”

But dammit if he isn’t going to make it work.

It stands out. Terribly, in fact.

The team in charge of building it did their best, Jake knows, to make it as innocuous as possible but even him, who still sees things with human eyes, can see the way its metal walls clash with the rest of the forest around them. Fitted in the hole two roots make, they stare at it for what feels like a small eternity, Jake opening and closing his hands into fists, while Neytiri holds Spider close to her chest, as if unsure if that is the place where she wants her child to go into.

Its construction had been quite the topic of discussion, first between the two of them, and then between them and the clan. Neytiri had left for an entire night after he first told her, coming back only when the forest was barely waking up to hold Spider tightly before he and Jake left. She had accompanied Jake to Hell’s Gate the following days, not leaving Norm alone about what exactly such a place would entail. Only after many different reassurances did she give a terse nod of approval.

Now, Norm is right beside them in his Avatar form, eyes flickering nervously between what’s being called ‘Spider’s room’ during its construction and them. He bends down, calling some of the older children to his side, and whispers something to one of them. The kid shrieks in joy, and takes off running, the others following him.

Jake doesn’t have time to wonder about that, because it is not long after that that the kids reappear, carrying baskets in their arms. They take them to Norm for inspection, and when he nods they go straight towards the shack.

“What are they…” His question dies on his lips at the sight, because it is very clear what they are doing.

The older children, teens and young adults alike, decorate the exterior, with branches and dry leaves, and paint over it so it blends seamlessly with the forest around. Once they are done, one of the kids goes up to Jake, daring to give him a quick hug.

“We hope you like it!” He laughs, running away without any other care.

Norm laughs at him. “You didn’t think we were going to just leave it like that, did you? C’mon.” He motions for them to follow him to the interior.

Inside, on the other hand, is bare; Neytiri didn’t take the adapted crib Spider had been using at the base, instead making one herself from scratch, a smaller version of the one her three children shared. There’s masks for the two of them, plus another two rebreathers for Spider; Neytiri takes a look at the blank walls, before passing their son over to Jake and promptly walking out.

She is soon to return with a bowl filled with paint, and makes a motion for him to get close. Near the sealed door, she kneels, covering her palm with paint and Jake understands.

They press their painted hands to one of the walls, each leaving their mark: a small, five-fingered handprint, a big one, and a thin four-fingered one. During the following weeks, two other handprints will come to join them.

In years to come, Spider will fill his room as he pleases: weaving will hang from every wall, a hammock, photographs, trinkets of all kinds, from his first attempts at making a bow to pretty stones Kiri gives to him. He won’t actually spend that much time in there, either, mostly only when Norm nags him to spend time without the mask. But, for now, the walls are bare, except for those three handprints.

Chapter Text

The inner workings of a child-sized rebreather are quite similar to the ones of an adult one: the filtration systems remain unchanged and the polymer static rim seals the mask tightly over Spider’s young face the same as it would to anybody else. Matias Arriaga, the mechanic who built it for him, would even dare to say that the only key difference is the size.

Of course, all maintenance procedures must be kept for it to keep working as it should, something that both Matias and Norm reminded the new parents of constantly: the filters must be washed every two weeks, the seal checked over by Matias every now and then, and the red light on one side blinking means something is wrong. What is? That can vary, both in levels of repair to the device and possible danger to the user, but it must be checked as soon as possible, to be safe.

Jake has taken to carrying an extra rebreather with him -along with brand new filters- wherever he goes, a left habit from when he needed to use them that has adapted to the care of his son.

Neytiri, however, has not.

The surprising thing, she would think half deliriously after the events, is not that it happened, but the fact that it didn’t happen before.

(And how, if she has anything to say about it, it will never happen again.)

It’s been a good year.

Not too far from Hometree, the children play under the careful eye of their mother and grandmother, away from the bigger roots and more dangerous paths. Neteyam and Spider take turns chasing each other, as much as their small legs allow them too, while Kiri sits on her grandmother’s lap, fully enraptured by some story Mo’at is spinning for her.

Jake is away, the first time in months in which he has willingly parted from their side, conducting Iknimaya for a new group of soon-to-be hunters. It had become necessary, after the proper time of mourning had passed, for the old hunters to bond anew and for the new ones to do so at last. Neytiri had declined the invitation to go, the loss of Seze still too raw in her heart, and had limited herself to watch her mate lead the group away from Hometree.

With each passing day Neytiri has seen Jake grow more confident in his role with the clan, their family and by her side; entire conversations between them can be had in just one glance and a mere touch, even if they are still far from the secret language her parents shared, she is glad for the slow but sure development of one of their own. One where she learns to read his mood by the line of his shoulders or the wrinkles that form around his eyes, and one where he learns the same by the sound of her laughter or the subtle movement of her hands.

It will come one day, of that she is sure. Their connection grows strong already.

The People, too, grow stronger: laughter and joyful songs are heard more often, the tense lines in the young ones’ faces are disappearing from their expressions and grief is not the only emotion present in the elders’ voices when telling stories of times past. Even Hometree seems to hug her more warmly these days.

Neytiri herself has changed: she is older now, maybe not wiser but certainly with more of the world at her shoulders. She has learned more from times of peace than she ever did during times of war, from her circumstances, from her mate and from her children.

And what an absolute joy it is to learn from her children. They celebrated Neteyam's and Kiri’s first year, as well as Spider’s second (but first as part of their family) and with it came dozens and dozens of happy memories from the year past: from first steps to first words to first cries. Her children’s first notes of their songs have been a pleasure to hear.

Lost in her thoughts as she is, it’s the only excuse she can give for why she doesn’t notice sooner.

Spider has stopped running. More than sitting, he stumbles down, barely managing to catch himself with his hands. His breath is more laboured than it should be for the game they were playing.

“Spider?” She gets by his side in a step, kneeling down to get as close to his height as possible. Mo’at too gets closer, Kiri safely wrapped in one arm and quickly moving to get Neteyam by her side. “Spider, what is it?”

He is gasping now, the front of his mask fogged up as his breath comes harder and harder to him. His eyes are filled with tears.

Neytiri blinks and she’s not seeing her son, but her mate: smaller, pink, with unmoving, thin legs. He wasn’t breathing then, because something in his mask had been wrong; she blinks again and it is her son who isn't breathing now. She looks for a crack, a ripped opening, but can’t find anything that might indicate the cause for Spider’s current state, nothing but a blinking red light on one side of the mask. She doesn’t know for how long it’s been calling for attention.

Panic runs through her entire self as swift as an arrow, but she forces herself to shove it back far from her mind. Spider is wailing now, the cries robbing him of breath even faster, and she cannot afford to join him in his fear.

She will not lose a son today.

Neytiri lifts him up in her arms and runs. Runs faster than she has ever run in her life, jumping over roots and ignoring calls of her name, ignoring everything that is not Spider’s frantic crying.

Please Great Mother, don’t take him from me.

She practically shoves her way towards the centre of Hometree, where Spider’s room is nested in, and barges through the door; she makes sure it’s properly closed behind her, and for once she ignores the way the air inside makes her nose itch. She places Spider on his crib and takes off his mask; his cries have gone dangerously low in volume, and being inside doesn’t seem to be helping at all.

In the corner of her eye she sees the machine that Jake uses to communicate with Norm back at the Sky People’s base, the one they had insisted on installing inside Spider’s room as a precaution. Just in case, Max had said, you are not going to be carrying a comm everywhere, are you?

She finds herself grateful for it now.

She manages to stop the shaking of her fingers just enough for her to work the device, movements copying the ones she has seen Jake do hundreds of times. Her eyes travel to Spider every few seconds (his chest moves up and down, up and down, it must stay that way) until she hears a buzz followed by Norm’s voice.

“...Hello?”

“Norm,” she says, as firm as she’s able to. “You have to get here. Now.”

“Neytiri?” From his side, she hears frantic movement. Her voice must not have been as calm as she thought. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Spider. His mask… He’s not…” Her voice breaks and she hates it, she hates the way she feels fear clawing at her throat, preventing her from speaking. Her human child has always been small, but now he looks tiny, barely breathing, eyes closed.

“We’re on our way.”

She hears another buzz and then, silence.

She goes to sit next to Spider, big, yellow eyes focused on the rise and fall of his chest. She dares not move him, not touch him anywhere; her mind runs wild on the things she missed (how could she have let this happen), and echoes with the cries her baby had let out when he couldn’t breathe.

Her baby. A year ago, Neytiri took in Spider as her son before the eyes of Eywa, but this might be the first time she has been so painfully aware of the fact, so painfully aware of how close she might have come to losing him.

(Of how much it would kill her to lose him.)

It’s not long before Norm comes barging in, followed by a Sky Person she doesn’t identify. She hisses at the stranger, but Norm grabs her arm to pacify her.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. This is Viv, she knows more about kids than any of us remaining.”

The woman, short and covered in freckles, with a thick mess of red curls on top of her head, smiles nervously at Neytiri, before her gaze lands on Spider and immediately rushes to his side. Neytiri’s gaze never leaves the newcomer as she settles next to her son, taking things she doesn’t recognise out of a bag.

“I wasn’t expecting all those years in paediatrics to be much use in Pandora, but I’m glad for them now.”

The words mean nothing to her, but her following question does, “What happened?”

Right after what happened to Sylwanin, Father had sat her and Tsu’tey down and taught them to separate emotion from fact in their voices. It is with this teaching in mind that she explains, in her calmest of tones, talking about facts and events as if she had not lived through them; meanwhile, the woman gets to work, placing a smaller mask on Spider that covers only his nose and mouth, and attaching plastic cords to her son’s chest. She closes her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

“I’ll check the mask,” says Norm after she finishes. Neytiri passes it to him without comment, waiting for the remaining scientist to talk.

The woman, Viv, lets out a sigh, but there is relief shining in her eyes.

“Well, the little one is gonna be alright. I’ll keep him on oxygen for a bit longer, and keep an eye out for any possible nausea or vomit, but he should be all good in the next few days.”

The words lift a weight from her shoulders; she moves towards Spider, tracing his sleeping features with one finger, careful not to disturb his mask. His cheeks remain tearstained, and Neytiri has to wonder if hers look the same.

“Here it is.” Norm’s voice gets her out of her own head, and she turns to see him holding a small…something in the air. “This should have been taken out a couple of days ago for cleaning, but it wasn’t, so it hasn’t been filtering the air correctly. See here? Jake must have forgotten, or he would’ve noticed it.”

Yes, he would have. Jake, by virtue of having the need of one before, tended to most of the matters regarding Spider’s mask.

Why doesn’t she?

Even though Sylwanin was the one meant for the role of Tsahik, Mother had taught them both: Neytiri remembers days and weeks at her mother’s side, learning of the ceremonies of their People. Mother taught them to see, to look for Eywa in the smallest of things, to look for words where there weren’t any. Mother trained them in rituals and ceremonies, in different techniques of the breath and the mind. She is trained in many different ways of healing, be it with plants, soil or water, but of this? Of this she has no knowledge.

Something to rectify. Immediately.

“Teach me,” she orders Norm. “I must know this.”

Norm looks like he wants to argue, but a single look from her has him sagging in defeat. He pulls her to the side, close enough so she can still keep an eye on Spider if necessary, and starts talking her through what he calls ‘the basics’: the main things Spider differs from the Na’vi, and what do they mean for his care. He talks her through the functions of his mask and how to take care of it properly, tells her about ‘check-ups’ and differences in temperature and growth.

Through all this, Neytiri is as attentive as she once was with her mother. She works through the movements of assembling the mask until it starts to feel as natural as setting her bow, repeating under her breath all the things Norm tells her. She doesn’t stop -nor does she let Norm stop- until she hears Spider wake up and call for her.

In the blink of an eye, she is already by his side, everything else forgotten; the mask is gone, mouth free to come up with all sorts of baby babbles. She smiles at the sound of it, holding him close to her chest and, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, she can finally breathe.

Jake arrives back at Hometree in the last hour of light before Eclipse. He finds two of his children sleeping on their crib, his mate nowhere to be found and Mo’at waiting for him; he listens to her recall the day’s events with his heart on his throat, and forces himself to walk into Spider’s room on steady feet.

Mo’at has no reason to lie to him, and if anybody was still in danger she would’ve told him, but Jake only breathes easier once he sees both of them: Spider is asleep, chest going up and down at the rhythm of his breath, and Neytiri is sitting down next to his crib, eyes closed and a mask of her own covering the lower half of her face.

Chapter Text

The songcord of the Olo’eyktan of the Omaticaya is a constant cause of chatter among the Na’vi. It’s short like a not-fully-grown child’s, but it holds the memories of an experienced warrior; its first knot wasn’t tied by his parents, but by the Omaticaya Tsahik herself, and it is said it was she who taught him about them in the first place. At its starting point rests a crystal that mimics the stars’ shine, for his origins, followed by a miniature Toruk carved in bone and the feather and wood design that marks him as clan leader, for his position among the People, and then entire stanzas of song in form of beads narrating the Battle Against the Sky People. Toruk Makto’s song is powerful like a war drum, echoing Toruk’s own roar.

Jake Sully’s song, however, truly starts with the fragment that Neytiri gifts him. It signifies their bond, she says, their union in the eyes of Eywa and the People; its bead is green and blue in colour, followed by a plant-woven design that mimics ikrans mid flight. The first piece he handwaves himself is the one he gifts her in return: a companion bead, and an arrangement made with wood from Fallen Hometree and leaves from New Hometree. It’s their past, and their future.

Right after that, rests a bead that Mo’at helped him carve; after the funerary rites were done and the People gathered and buried their dead, Jake asked her for one more farewell. In the shadow of the Tree of Souls, Jake Sully speaks his brother’s name again.

In a stone brought over from Earth, left behind in one of Grace’s labs, Jake carves a small T, and carries his brother right next to his heart.

And then, of course, there’s his children.

Jake carved, painstakingly and meticulously, each of the beads that would represent his children in his songcord. Each different, each unique: Neteyam’s is bright blue, Kiri’s a dark shade of red, Spider’s a quiet gold. Jake has taken the habit to run his fingers through them whenever the world around him becomes a bit too much, a constant reminder of who waits for him at the end of the day.

He just wasn’t expecting to make another one so soon.

It comes as a surprise, even more so than Kiri’s. Neytiri whispers it to him under the cover of darkness, while their children sleep next to them, and for a long moment the only thing Jake can do is stare at her. Her voice betrays no nerves, but her expression is a different matter entirely: she is every bit as surprised as he is. Words fail him after that, so he limits himself to kiss her softly on the forehead, then on each cheek, and to wrap her in his arms, hands over her stomach.

The following morning, Jake has half the mind of starting to form a plan, a strategy to follow, an idea that crumbles almost as quickly as it first appeared: their children demand attention every moment of every day and, their own responsibilities to the clan added, there is no time to plan much of anything.

Or, at least, not in the way Jake intended. The organised, methodical ways of his time with the marines and Hell’s Gate find themselves replaced with rushed conversations while feeding the kids, while putting them to sleep, while weaving blankets and knitting clothes.

As time passes by, it becomes common to see the Olo’eyktan with at least one of his children in a sling during meetings, his eldest’s head popping up the most; common to see him crunched over while holding his human son’s hand as the kid learns to walk around Hometree, him pointing the atokirina’ to his daughter in the quietest of voices while his mate sleeps by his side.

As time passes by, growing anticipation sizzles in the air that surrounds the Sullys: it is felt in every movement, every conversation, every fleeting touch between them. In the way Jake can’t seem to take his eyes away from Neytiri, in the way talks of a sibling are intertwined in the stories they tell their children to put them to sleep. Even they seem to feel it when cuddling next to their mother, in their eagerness to be next to her. It is the beginning of a change of melody in their family’s song.

Lo’ak’s song starts bathed in morning light, with the sharp cry of a child destined to never go unnoticed. His mother starts to sing the moment he’s placed in her arms, and his first notes are sung not only by his parents, but are accompanied by the voices of his older siblings.

Lo’ak’s song is echoed by baby babbles and midnight cries, by warm reassurances and mild scoldings. His song is found within family, in between the arms of his parents and smiles of his siblings.

A vivid green bead rests now in his father’s songcord, following blue, red and gold.

At the Tree of Souls, the Omaticaya sing in welcome of their newest member.

Jake Sully and Neytiri carry him to bond with Eywa for the first time, the child unwilling to stay still even at his parents’ request, already keen on doing the opposite of what he’s told, it seems. Even though they can't join in song yet, his siblings make their presence known throughout the ceremony: his sister follows every movement with wide eyes and his brothers laugh along with the wind.

As she did before, once the ceremony is complete, Mo’at holds her grandson in arms and places a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“Welcome Lo’ak.”

Chapter Text

This is not how Neytiri was expecting to find her two oldest children.

Covered in mud and what smells like smashed berries, laughing, near a shallow stream that flows down to the river. Whatever the original purpose of their game was seems to be forgotten in favour of splashing around and trying to get the other as wet as possible. She has to take a moment to suppress a smile before getting closer to them, thinking of how both are always so eager to encourage each other in whatever they might think of next: if it’s not Neteyam running and pulling his brother along with him, is Spider doing so. Jake likes to joke about how they will be when Lo’ak is old enough to join them.

The sight of her brings sheepish smiles and mildly guilty looks, followed by groans when she announces they will have to wash themselves before going back to Hometree. She helps them do so, noticing that, at one point, the mud markings seemed to be following a pattern.

“What is it you wanted to achieve, mmm?”

Neytiri is not expecting an answer, not really. Childish antics rarely have more reason to be other than sheer curiosity and the experience of something new, proven right by the way Neteyam is still trying to clean out mud from his tongue. It is not the first time her children get into mischief for the sake of mischief and she is certain it is not going to be the last.

It’s why she doesn’t know how to react to Spider’s answer.

“I just wanted to look like you.”

Spider knows he doesn’t look like his mom, or his dad. He doesn’t look like Neteyam or Kiri or baby Lo’ak, or even Grandma, he knows that. His skin is a pale pink, not the dark tones of blue of his family, and his hair is curly and yellow like the sun when his parents’ and siblings’ are dark and wavy like the night.

He's still not exactly sure as to why that is though.

Mama says it's because he comes from far away, a place somewhere in the stars, but that doesn't make sense either, because Dad and Kiri's other mom come from there too, and they all look the same. It's just Spider who looks different.

He doesn’t even know where exactly in the stars is where he comes from, since Dad says he’ll explain when he’s older and Mama doesn’t have a song for it, which is the weirdest part of all. Mama has a song for everything.

Except for this.

He looks a bit like Norm and Viv, he guesses, but that only leaves him with more questions; they are not family after all. He looks at their pink tones and light hair and wonders and wants.

It’s not until one of the older kids convinces Neteyam and him to try some berries they found by the river (which were terribly sour and left their mouths numb for hours) and they both end up with faces and hands stained in a blue that almost looks purple that Spider gets an idea.

It might not have been his best idea, he thinks, as Mama takes to cleaning them and Spider sees all his efforts wash down the river.

So, when Spider tells his mother why Neteyam was covering him in berry juice and mud in the first place, and her only response is to finish bathing him and holding him close for a moment, he’s mostly just glad he got away without a scolding.

He’ll have to think on what other things to try next.

The next morning, Mama calls him away from the others the moment he’s finished with breakfast. She sends Neteyam and Kiri with Grandma for morning lessons, promising that yes, Spider will join you soon, now go, and leaves Dad and Lo’ak to finish their own meal.

They walk together towards his room, Spider carefully matching Mama’s steps. Dad has been teaching him how to move over the bigger roots and leaves, how to balance himself on tricky ground, so it’s with this in mind that he follows his mom, trying his best to copy her movements.

Once they arrive, Spider makes a direct line towards his hammock; Spider’s room is a long way from the way it started, from the recent addition of the hammock to the weavings that tell stories hanging from his wall, all the way to its latest addition in the family’s portrait that rests next to the door in the shape of Lo’ak’s five-fingered handprint. Mama walks over towards him, a bowl in her hands he never saw her get.

“What’s the paint for?” He asks, peeking over the bowl in her hands. The last time they used paint, other than for special ceremonies, was when Lo’ak put his hand on Spider’s wall.

“You’ll see,” Mama says. “Now come here.”

He does so in a run, letting Mama catch him in her arms as he knows she will, and accepts the kisses she places on top of his head before settling on her lap.

Mama makes him sit still, before dipping her fingers into the paint and starting tracing a pattern on Spider’s right leg, then on his left, all the way up to his belly in a way that tickles a bit. She waits until he stops laughing, a smile on her face, before moving to his right arm and then his left.

“Deep breath,” she tells him once she finishes with his arms, and removes his mask.

It’s something they’ve been practising, too, how to hold his breath for long periods of time, just in case. Mama gets really tense whenever they do it for some reason, even though they’ve yet to try it outside.

“Breathe, Spider.” He does so, as Mama dips her fingers back into the paint. “It will take a moment.”

He gets cross eyed trying to see what she’s doing on his forehead and cheeks, but he suspects it must look like the patterns on the rest of his body. It takes some time, but Mama seems to decide it’s enough and puts down her hand.

“There.” She brushes a lock of hair from his forehead, and smiles. “All ready.”

Spider looks down at himself, curious: the blue paint covers his body in deliberate ways, following shapes Spider’s sure he’s seen before, but can’t quite remember where until Mama places her arm right next to his, and his eyes go wide.

“They look like yours, Mama!” And they do, the blue stripes that now decorate Spider’s body look just like the ones on his family’s, almost in the same tone of blue. The rest of him is still pink, and Mama didn’t do anything about his hair, but now…now he looks a bit more like them.

“Like mine.” She pulls him close, stopping him from jumping side to side, and hugs him tightly.

He turns to look at her, recognising the hug from whenever Big Talks are coming his way: Mama only holds them as if she never wanted to let go when she wants them to listen, really listen, to what she is going to say next.

“I am your mother, Spider, as your father is your father, it matters not what you look like. I know it here.” She puts a hand on her chest, and then does the same on Spider’s own, his hands immediately going to join hers. “And here. Do you understand?”

He nods, because he does: his parents are his parents and his siblings are his siblings and his clan is his People, it’s simple as that. He cuddles closer to her, eyes still fixed in the blue lines that now mimic his mother’s own.

However, it is the first hint of conversations to come, of questions that will not be dismissed so easily. Neytiri sees the way her son looks up at the night sky, looking for something he doesn’t know the name of, and notices the stories her mate tells their children mention his place of origin more and more. She knows their time runs short.

But for now, her human baby in arms (hers, hers, theirs and no one else’s), mother and son safe in each other’s embrace, is more than enough.

Chapter Text

He runs and he feels free.

Runs as fast as his legs can take him, wishing the wind itself would carry him on its wings and take him all the way to the top of the tallest trees, to the floating mountains and their secrets, to the sky and its thunder and rain. He runs with the power of a palulukan, fierce and strong and unstoppable.

“Slow down Neteyam!”

The voice of his brother makes him slow down, but not enough to fully pull him out of his fantasy. He wants to keep running, see where his feet take him, feel the rain he can already sense in the air hit his face, and forget about everything else.

Still, he can’t —and would never— actually leave Spider behind, so he stops and waits for the other to just catch up with him, before starting to climb up the nearest tree.

“Go faster, little brother!”

“I’m older than you!” Spider screams back, following right after him.

“Then why are you still small?” He turns to see his brother sticking out his tongue at him. Neteyam laughs, seeing Spider grab a smaller branch to climb after him.

It’s a thin one, barely coming out of the tree, and there is something Dad said about thin branches running through Neteyam’s mind when…

The branch snaps. In his head, it all happens very slowly: the loose grip of Spider’s hand on the wood, the fleeting panic in his expression, the choked gasp that escapes his mouth, and the final result.

Spider falls.

The scream his brother lets out gets drowned out by sudden thunder, but Neteyam feels it in his bones all the same.

(He doesn’t think he will ever forget it.)

As the years go by, Jake and Neytiri have come to learn all the differences in yelps, cries, wails or shrieks that their children are capable of producing. They know to recognise a nightmare cry in the middle of the night, an excited shriek due to a childish scheme or a new toy, the tiniest of yelps in surprise or mild pain. They know which sounds require immediate action, which ones will quiet down on their own and which ones must come accompanied by a lecture on something or other. After seven years, they have come to think there is no sound that will catch them by surprise.

They are wrong.

The scream that pierces through the constant rhythm of rain hitting soft ground fills them with pure terror.

“MOM! DAD!”

They are moving before they have the chance to process it; two have become one in the blink of an eye, and they have but a mere objective they follow with single minded focus: find their kids.

Spider and Neteyam left after the midmorning meal to, in their words, explore as mighty hunters would do. They know they are not supposed to stray far from Hometree in their games, and know to come back immediately at the change of weather, so they can’t be that far.

Please Great Mother, let them be close. Let them be unharmed. Let them never make such a noise again.

When they finally make it to a small clearing a stone’s throw away from Hometree, it takes them a moment to understand what they’re seeing: Spider on the ground, Neteyam standing guard by his side. It could be any other day, any other scuffle between brothers, except that neither seems to be able to move, and they can hear the sniffles even before they set eyes on them, even with the rain.

It takes them a glance to set a course of action: Neytiri moves towards Neteyam, Jake towards Spider. She holds her son in her arms, eyes frantically cursing through his body in search of injury: other than a few scrapes on the legs, he looks alright. And yet, he can’t seem to stop sobbing.

“It’s alright, it’s alright”, his mother whispers, holding him close to her chest. “What happened?”

Spider is another story: he shakes a little, but no sound comes out of him, quiet tears run through his cheeks, and when his dad speaks to him his mouth simply pulls itself down into a frown. Jake quickly checks over the mask, before moving downwards and finding the source of the problem.

Spider’s ankle is bruised, and it’s starting to swell. A feather touch over it draws a pained noise out of him.

“Sorry, kiddo, sorry,” his dad says, checking over the rest of his body: other than the usual cuts and scrapes, he seems to be fine, but Jake still asks, “Does anything else hurt? Just your leg?”

Next to them, Neteyam tells the story to his mother in between whimpers, pointing towards the tree and how he saw Spider fall. Neytiri and Jake both listen, even if one’s attention is a bit divided, and once he’s done Neytiri picks him up and takes him away.

In a couple of seconds that felt too long for both father and son, she is back, Mo’at right behind her.

Spider’s grandmother kneels by his side, strong vines and clean branches already in her arms. She speaks slowly and calmly to him, going over what she’s doing in terms simple enough for a child to understand. Neytiri starts to sing as Mo’at goes to make a splint, and she sees him putting all his focus on her so as to forget the pain in his leg.

There are special fruits and herbs mixes, Mo’at says, for the pain and healing, but she recognises she doesn’t know how well they would work on the human child. They have learned -through time, lab tests, and a very exhausted Norm- what plants work for a fever, for a nasty cough, for a stomach ache. Nothing more serious than that.

This however, Jake thinks to himself, better not leave to chance.

He calls his ikran as Neytiri picks her son in arms, careful to not jostle him, and the three of them mount the ikran as soon as it lands. Jake flies swiftly and rapidly, grateful that, while it hasn’t stopped, the rain remains soft and light. Neytiri makes sure Spider is properly covered, and she doesn’t stop singing in the small time it takes them to reach Hell’s Gate.

“We gotta stop meeting like this,” Norm says once they’ve landed and he sees the state Spider is in. By the time they go in and have explained what happened, Viv has everything she might need set and ready.

They let her work, let her give Spider something that numbs the pain and makes him sleepy, watch as she carefully undoes the splint around his leg and performs tests of her own.

“It seems he landed wrong,” she says once she’s finished. “Twisted the ankle most likely, but he’s lucky. I’m surprised he didn’t get more hurt, actually. Tough little guy.”

Viv insists on him staying the night, possibly two, so that the swelling goes down and she can get him a walking boot that fits him properly. An entire conversation goes between Jake and Neytiri in mere looks and twitches of the mouth, before Jake kisses her and Spider on the forehead and takes his leave.

Neytiri settles down, accepts the mask Norm offers her, and waits for her son to wake.

Neteyam has always known his brother is different.

His skin is not blue, he has an extra finger on his hands and feet like Dad does and his hair is curly and bright and it takes Mom longer to braid it in the mornings. He knows he got taller than him not long ago even though Spider is older than him, and he knows he never, never must take off the Sky People mask he uses to breathe. Neteyam knows all of this, he doesn’t think there was ever a time when he didn’t know this.

He is just not sure he knew what it meant. Until now.

(A fall like that wouldn’t have hurt him. It wasn’t even that high.)

Dad finds him all curled up within himself barely an hour shy from Eclipse, dark enough so that the nightlights of the forest have started glowing already. Neteyam found cover under a bunch of the biggest leaves he could find hours ago, when Dad returned (without Mom, without Spider) and the rain was stopping, to tell them their brother would be okay. Kiri had started crying and Lo’ak mostly just looked confused and Grandmother had many questions, so Neteyam had made use of the distraction to quietly slip away, wanting to be alone.

And it worked. For a while, at least.

“Hey kiddo,” Dad says, settling down next to him. The sight of his dad, tall and imposing most of the time, now crouched over in a weird way, with raindrops still running over his body, would make him laugh at any other time. “How’re you feeling?”

Neteyam limits himself to shrug, unsure and unwilling to answer. His eyes are fixed on the roots under him, on their shapes and links.

“Do you want to tell me why we are hiding?”

He quickly shakes his head, eyes still on the ground. Dad hums, and starts talking to himself: about the evening meal, about the last time they went flying together, about anything and everything that is not what happened that day.

“Is Spider gonna be okay?” Neteyam lets slip out, during a pause on a story of the last hunting party. He already knows the answer to this question, but he asks it anyway, fearful the answer might have changed in the entire time he’s been thinking about it.

“Yes.” It’s Dad's immediate response, and Neteyam dares to look at him for the first time since he arrived: there’s no lie in his father’s expression. “He’ll have to wear a special boot for a while to heal properly, and Mom is staying with him right now, but they both are gonna come back soon, okay? You’ll get to see him in a morning or two.”

He doesn’t say anything else, so Neteyam dares to make the confession that’s been eating at him since his parents flew off with his hurt brother in arms.

“It was my fault.”

(Mom and Dad always say he is the oldest, that it’s his role to take care of his younger siblings, like Dad takes care of the entire clan.)

“Neteyam…”

“It was!” He almost screams. “I told him to follow me and kept pushing him and I know he’s not as fast as me but I did it anyways and…”

(He failed.)

“Hey, hey, look at me.” Dad grabs him by the arms, stopping a tremble he hadn’t noticed had started. “It was not your fault. It was an accident, and accidents happen. The important thing here is that you are both alright.”

“Neteyam.” Dad’s eyes find his, and Neteyam feels the tears fall. Again. “I know it was scary, sweetheart, but it was not your fault. I need you to understand this.” Dad doesn’t let him look away until he nods, and he tries to believe him. “You just gotta be more careful the next time, okay?”

He nods again, climbing onto his Dad’s lap and finding safety and comfort in there, as always.

Dad holds him, murmuring about tree branches and differences between brothers, and Neteyam makes a promise with himself.

He will be more careful next time, and the next one and the next one. Spider might be older, but Neteyam will care for him as he does so with Kiri and Lo’ak.

This is not happening again.

Chapter Text

There are two things Kiri Sully has known to be true her entire life: she has two moms and she hears things nobody else can.

The first one is a plain fact, easy for everybody to see: Mom is with her every day, tall, beautiful and strong like Hometree. She plays with her, sings to her and her siblings lullabies to fall asleep to and makes her favourite meals whenever she asks.

Ma, on the other hand, she only knows of through stories. Dad talks of her with awe and respect, while Mom and Grandma often mention how full of knowledge she was. Her stories are told through videologs, through pictures she stares at for hours and hours, through anecdotes that come with both laughter and tears.

She knows she looks like her too, the lines her face follows the same as her mother’s Dreamwalker body.

The second truth that accompanies her ever since she can remember is…a little less simple.

She hadn’t realised it at first, that it wasn’t something everybody could do. She hadn’t noticed that Mom couldn’t hear the wind’s song as clearly as she does, or that her father couldn’t feel the constant hum of the forest’s heartbeat. Her brothers too, as much as she loves them, don’t quite understand what happens when she grows quiet, eyes lost in the distance.

Neteyam lets her be, stands guard and goes for their parents when he thinks much time has happened; Lo’ak pushes and pulls, careful but insistent, until she agrees to play with him and the others, and Spider goes quiet right along with her, resting his head on her shoulder and waiting until she acknowledges his presence. It’s how it’s been for her entire life, and yet Kiri seeks her answers to questions she’s still not sure how to ask.

She wonders, in the privacy of her mind, in words she has only breathed directly into the Tree of Souls, if something in that first fact, in her mother, in where she came from, could give her answers for the second one.

Spider Sully has only just become aware of two things about himself: he knows his parents are his parents, in the same way he knows they are not. Grandma used the words tirea sa’sem once, for him and Kiri, and said that Mom and Dad chose them, but family is still family, no matter how they came to be.

While Neteyam and Lo’ak are his companions for mischief and troublemaking, Kiri is his confidant, his secret keeper, as he is hers in return. His sister is who he goes to when the scornful looks from some of the clan’s elders cut a bit too deep, or when the older kids’ teasing about his size gets extra mean; when he can’t sleep and the questions in his head become too loud to ignore, he cuddles next to her and lets her understanding cover him like a blanket.

Because Kiri knows, she knows as well as Spider does what it’s like to be different. She’s been on the receiving end of the funny looks and mean-spirited comments, and she knows what it’s like to look up at the stars and wonder.

He knows he didn’t grow inside Mom’s belly, like Neteyam and Lo’ak; he and Kiri are alike that way, and that doesn’t make Mom any less their Mom, it just means they have two. Kiri’s other mom’s name is Grace and they know lots of stuff about her.

That’s where he and Kiri start to differ, however. His other mom’s name was Paz, and Dad says she was of the Sky People, but grows quiet and changes the subject whenever Spider tries to keep asking.

When you’re older, those were his words, the last time he asked. We’ll explain when you’re older.

Spider was five years old the first time the fact that he was never going to look like the rest of his family fully sank in; he was seven when his differences in size became obvious in his first (and, to his parents’ dismay, not his last) broken bone. He is now freshly turned eight, having celebrated his birthday mere days ago, and he thinks he’s finally old enough to know.

So, he goes to look for his sister and, under the cover of night and with interlaced hands, they form a plan.

The day has arrived. And Jake Sully has a choice to make.

When Kiri asks, and Spider does too, Jake shares one look with Neytiri, and they both answer them with a story.

This story starts far away, Dad says. Up, up in the stars.

He shows them memories of Earth: songs that are loud and that echo in their ears for long minutes afterwards, structures in stone and metal and crystal that are as tall as some trees, curious trinkets people could ride on, four-pawed small animals that they make fun of.

(The photos are always of how it was, way before Jake himself was even born. There is no need to show them the state Earth was in when he left.)

The story starts with Uncle Tommy, and Aunt Sylwanin, and a woman named Grace Augustine. Names they all know, songs they’ve heard before, but this time pictures join them: a human with short hair and Dad’s smile, in a face that should be hard to recognise but isn’t, not really; a Na’vi with Mom’s eyes, with Grandma’s pose present even through a photograph; and lastly, a human woman with bright red hair and sharp features.

Dad talks about his brother, about how they looked the same but were different in a way only brothers joined by the hip could be. The kids amuse themselves imagining they can tell their differences, in the wrinkles by the eyes and the frown between their brows. Dad talks about Uncle Tommy and his dream of coming here, of how, when he couldn’t, Dad took his place and made the trip that would lead him to meet Mom.

(I think you look much better now, Dad, says Neteyam. His Grandmother has always told him that he looks like the perfect blend of his parents, and he can’t find his father in the human that looks back at him from an unmoving image.

Kiri, on the other hand, has no trouble connecting the human with the Na’vi. The strength, the kindness, so essential of their father, is always present, no matter what form he is in.

Spider spends the most time looking at the photographs, searching for traces of curly, bright hair and dark eyes. He knows he’s not Na’vi, but he had hoped that maybe when his dad was human… well, they’d looked a bit more alike.

Lo’ak thinks that, if he looks very carefully, he can find his own face reflected back at him in those two men in the pictures. And he finds comfort in that.)

Mom speaks of her sister, of her endless wisdom, of her fearlessness, of back when the Avatars first appeared. She tells them about the Dreamwalkers, about faces and bodies that looked like the People but couldn’t See, not really, no matter how hard they tried to teach them. Mom says that Aunt Sylwanin was a fighter first and foremost, and how she fought until she couldn’t anymore.

(The kids are old enough to see the tears in their mother’s eyes, and don’t let go of her until they are gone. She then kisses each of them on the forehead, and they respond in kind.

Neteyam promises to himself to fight as his aunt did, for his family and for his People. Lo’ak holds his siblings a bit closer for a moment, not liking one bit the coincidences in his parents’ stories.

Kiri and Spider notice the shadows over their mother’s story and grasp the other’s hand firmly, suddenly nervous of the answers they seek.)

Both talk them through what Grace Augustine did, how she met each of their parents and what she did with both of them. Dad recalls memories of firm scoldings, and gentle teasing, of passion and bravery and confidence; Mom intertwines Toktor Grace’s story with Aunt Sylwanin’s, with anecdotes of school, learning to speak a language not her own, of learning of places beyond the stars.

(Kiri listens with endless fascination, she asks and asks as if she were running out of time. The others let her, subconsciously aware of what this means for their sister; they remain quiet until Kiri goes silent herself, and settles in between Dad’s arms to keep listening.)

Pieces of the story are added bit by bit, by Norm and Viv, by Max and Matias, by Grandma back at Hometree when it’s getting dark. Pieces of their Grandfather’s song,

(Through Grandma’s voice and with notes passed down at the Tree of Souls, Grandma speaks calmly, but with her eyes and smile full of love.)

of a human named Trudy,

(She was a good person, Dad says, lost in his memories. Very brave. Braver than me.

Lo’ak gives him a look of utter disbelief, and that is enough to bring him back.)

of a mother named Paz.

(She was strong, says Matias, while fixing up a new mask for him.

She was a pilot, adds Norm, pointing at the sky with one finger.

She loved you, Spider, never doubt that, all of them say, in the quietest of voices, where Mom can’t quite hear, and Dad pretends he can’t either.)

The story Dad tells them is about love lost and love found. About new beginnings and renewed hope, about learning and growth, about families you build and you choose.

(When I first met your father, I tried to kill him.

It was love at first sight!)

It’s about shadows vanquished and long gone; the monsters in their parents’ stories were but mere shades. Frightening certainly, but intangible, unable to do any harm.

Back at Hometree, Dad tells them one final thing: “It doesn’t matter how any of us got to be here, the important thing is that we are. Together, as a family.”

He picks Lo’ak and Kiri in arms, to their immediate laughter, and lets Neteyam and Spider climb over his back, Mom joining them until they all fall down in a big pile, ready to sleep.

(Sully's stick together.)

Neytiri remains firm in her decision. He must never know.

Spider already carries so much for a body so small, no matter how hard he tries to brush it off; both of his parents know that he grows more aware of his differences each passing day, as he grows more insistent in overcoming them in every way possible. They’ll have more talks about it later, only the three of them, and Jake can’t bring himself to add more pain to his son.

He is theirs, and like his mate, he doesn’t plan on sharing him with a monster long gone.

Their original plan involved one question only, and probably the most important one.

Kiri asks of her father, and they have nothing but the truth to tell her: they don’t know.

Spider asks of his father, and they look their son in the eye, and they lie: they don’t know.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, when it’s dark and Spider can’t sleep, he mumbles the words of his Songcord, running his fingers over each piece.

Even though he is the oldest, Spider's songcord does not mark him as the firstborn. The elaborate knot at the start belongs to Neteyam, not him. His own starts with a tiny crystal that shines blue whenever sunlight hits it just right, like a twinkling star.

He doesn’t spend much time in the crystal, rushing over the words that mark him, and have since the beginning, as different. The only remarkable thing about it is that it creates a bond between his dad, his sister, and himself; none of the others carry crystal pieces.

(Except for Mom, but hers is different, and ever since that afternoon of non-answers and gleaming eyes, he has never been able to bring himself to ask. He will do many things, but purposefully making his mother cry is not one of them.)

Then follows the piece of carved bone that marks him as a member of the Omaticaya, from the animal his Dad hunted to celebrate his joining to the clan, and right next to it a soft blue bead in which he sees both of his parents.

(Paz…does not appear in his songcord. His parents didn’t add her when they first tied it, and he has never actually thought of adding her himself.

Somebody would still be missing, and why bother to even consider it then?)

There’s more to it, of course: a chunk of cured leather from the first Hunt Dad let him and Neteyam join in, a bit of broken stone from his first attempt at making an arrowhead mere days ago, the woven braid of plant and feather that Grandma gave him for his last birthday, representing him and his siblings.

He will look towards them when he reaches that part in his singing, away enough from the family pile as to not disturb them, and smile at thoughts of Neteyam’s mischievous eyes or Lo’ak’s angry pout or Kiri’s shiest smile.

Sometimes another voice will join his own, Mom wrapping him in her arms and song. She will sing alongside him, rocking him sideways as if he were still little (You are little, brother, he hears Neteyam in his head, tone gently teasing when others would not be), and slowly but surely walk him back to the pile, placing him in between her and Kiri.

And Eclipse doesn’t feel that dark anymore.

Spider doesn’t remember a time before Neteyam and Kiri; he has the vaguest of sensations of that year he must have been without his siblings, cold touches and constant movement, Grandmother’s humming voice coming as if from a dream, but not actual memories of it.

He remembers a bit more of the time before Lo’ak, but even that is not much better: there’s flashes of songs, of games, of colours and sounds. He knows he got really sick around that time, due to a malfunction in his mask, but that is only because Dad told him so. Spider’s life has been undoubtedly marked by the presence of his siblings.

This time, however, he will remember with absolute clarity.

The news of the baby, Spider notices, takes everyone but Grandmother by surprise, and it is her who falls immediately in charge of him and his siblings. The Clans Gathering is but a few months away, and Dad is already running himself ragged between the preparations, taking care of the People, and taking care of Mom, who with each passing day looks more tired and weary, belly growing bigger and bigger.

Grandmother keeps up with their lessons and puts them to work in whatever they can help in preparation for their new sibling, which mainly consists in being as helpful as possible to Mom. Spider, Kiri and Neteyam get to help some in blankets-weaving and toys-carving, but their main focus is to make sure Mom is as comfortable as possible.

Spider asks Grandmother if it was like this, seeing his Mom so worn out after an easy hunt, back when she had Neteyam or Lo’ak. Grandma doesn’t lie to them, so she answers that no Spider, it wasn’t. She kisses him on the top of his head and continues, but every child is different, worry not for things that have not come to pass.

He tries his best to follow Grandma’s advice, remembers her words when he lies down next to Mom and her singing is faint as it had never been, when months later she doesn’t move much farther away from their little nook at Hometree.

He worries and tries not to when it is him who sings to her in the dark of Eclipse.

Tuktirey’s song starts at the darkest moment of Eclipse.

Her arrival, as the announcement of it, is a complete surprise to everyone involved, though no less welcome for it.

Her song is now forever found in the nightlights of the forest she will grow to call home, in the warmth of the communal hearth where she had her first meal, in the arms of her oldest, human brother, who was the first one of her siblings to hold her, by virtue of being the only one awake to do so.

(It had been another sleepless night for him, the first cry of the baby offering the comfort his mother’s voice could not.)

Tuk’s first notes are, as usual, sung by her parents, but come morning light the voices of her brothers and sister will join the melody.

Her mother can’t help but think that her family’s song, after all these years, finally sounds complete once more.

At the Tree of Souls, Spider and his siblings watch their parents hold their sister towards the Great Mother for the first time.

Spider himself doesn't have a kuru but the roots hug him all the same. He sings the welcoming song and the words echo in his head and his heart, becoming One with the People as they welcome the newest member of their family.

Afterwards, when Grandma has whispered welcoming words to Tuktirey’s forehead and Mom (radiant, powerful, strong Mom, as she has always been) lets them hold her again, Spider feels all three of his siblings crowd him, eyes firmly on the baby in his arms.

“Hello Tuk-Tuk.” Spider says, pressing his masked face to her own as close as he’s able. “Welcome home.”

Chapter Text

This is a story about sisters.

The wind howls in its never ending song, slowly but surely getting Sylwanin to sleep: she feels her body relax, her eyes grow heavy, her breath coming slower…

And a sudden but painful elbow in the ribs, waking her up in an instant.

“Neytiri!” she says, identifying the shadowed figure that has crawled into her hammock as that of her little sister. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” the little girl answers, uncaring of the way Sylwanin tries to push her out. “I’m sleeping here tonight.”

Her tone offers no question, and Sylwanin would be very willing to kick her out if it weren’t for the slight tremble in her voice.

The wind howls angrily, Sylwanin notices; there’s thunder in the air, lightning in her nose and a trembling little sister in her arms.

…She can’t kick her out now, can she?

Grumbling, she pretends to resettle herself in her hammock, carefully rearranging them so that Neytiri can hide in the crook of her arms.

“Don’t move too much,” she mumbles, running a hand through her sister’s hair. “Or we’ll both fall out.”

Neytiri laughs, the thunder that follows fully gone from her mind.

The thunder rumbles far too loudly inside the metal walls of Spider’s room, sound unnaturally bouncing all over the place until he can feel it inside his head. It’s why he much prefers to ride out the storms outside: cuddling in between Kiri and Neteyam, with Lo’ak sprawled all over them because their brother can never be fully still, not even when he’s sleeping. The storm doesn’t rage quite as angrily, wrapped as he is in the middle of his siblings.

Tonight, however, a sharp cry interrupts the noise of the storm: their youngest sister doesn’t sound to be the biggest fan of them, and Dad’s increasingly frantic attempts at calming her down don’t seem to be working. It's Kiri who wakes Spider up, nodding towards the place where their parents are, quite unsuccessfully, trying to make the baby forget about the storm.

Tuk’s far too small to join in on the siblings pile yet, but that has an easy fix: if she can’t come herself, they’ll just have to go to her. Spider shakes Neteyam awake, their joined movement waking up Lo’ak; Kiri is already by their sister’s side, mumbling about the storm to a wide-eyed Tuk. The brothers make their way towards them, settling around their parents and their sisters, rain falling around them and Kiri’s voice guiding them all back to sleep. Entwined with her sister's voice, thunder doesn't rumble quite so loudly.

Unmoving, so still she may as well be a tree herself, perfectly blending with the landscape. She takes a single, minuscule breath, reading her bow and setting her eyes on her mark…

“Neytiri!”

Without meaning to, she lets the arrow fly, well far off the tree trunk everybody uses for practice.

“Neytiri! Where are you?”

Neytiri barely has time to let go of her bow before Sylwanin appears by her side, which ends up being a good choice, or she might have smacked her sister with it for interrupting her taronyu training. Sylwanin, even while being all long and gangly limbs, has the grace of a hunter in her walk, and Neytiri can’t wait until she is the same.

It certainly won’t be happening today, apparently.

“You made me miss my shot,” she says, grudgingly accepting Sylwanin’s arm over her shoulders.

She draws the line at her messing her hair, though, pushing her away as she laughs. “Sorry, sister, Father wants us both. Something about the Dreamwalkers again.”

Neytiri startles, stopping her walk. Again? She half wonders if Father will make them stop taking lessons…

“You.” Sylwanin gets her out of her own head by flicking her on the forehead. Neytiri hisses at her in answer, only causing more laughter. “It’s nothing, you’ll see. Now come, the sooner we get there, the sooner we can come back.”

“Wait, are you joining me?”

Sylwanin smiles with all her teeth, nodding, moving for a hug again.

This time, Neytiri lets her, half-clinging to her sister all the way back to Hometree.

It’s also a story about brothers.

Lo’ak is going to be a big and mighty hunter like his Dad someday and there is no better moment than now to start practicing.

It’s why he needs a real hunter’s bow, and why he sneaks out really early —yawning, of course, why are big and mighty hunters supposed to rise before the sun?— and grabs Dad’s bow, half carrying it, half dragging it towards the clear the older kids use for practice.

Of course, he thinks once he manages it, he might have failed to consider that Dad’s bow is bigger than himself (his growth spurt is coming, he is sure of it—) and shooting it might be just a bigger challenge than he originally thought.

But never mind that. He shakes his head, even more sure of himself now. He can totally do this, he will totally do this…as soon as he manages to properly lift the bow. He tries lifting it how Dad does, but he quickly realises that the height difference alone will not let him. He then tries to lift it fully at all, but he needs both arms to do so and leaves himself without a way to string it, never mind an actual arrow. Lastly, he pushes it up against a tree, but the angle is all wrong and the arrow just falls down pathetically instead of flying.

Lo’ak is seven years old, a mighty hunter, and he’s definitely not pouting because of a stupid, big bow. He will just sit down for a minute, arms crossed and eyes stinging with unspilled tears, because he’s tired.

“Morning, little brother!” A familiar voice calls out a moment later, and Lo’ak scrambles to his feet. Neteyam and Spider are making his way towards him, his oldest brother the one with the questions. “What are you doing up so early?”

Lo’ak just shrugs, unwilling to voice his failures out loud. The bow at his side is pretty evident anyways, if the look his brothers’ send each other’s way is any indication.

“I think,” says Neteyam, his eyes sparking with the idea. “That all of us can lift it.”

They do try, tiny arms giving it their all, but they still can’t manage to find the right angle to shoot properly, and Lo’ak is this close to just storming back to Hometree and hope Dad doesn’t notice his missing bow when Spider gasps suddenly, and springs away screaming, I’ll be back in a moment!

He and Neteyam have barely managed another attempt when Spider comes back, three of his bows in hands. Lo’ak knew his brother had taken to building his own weapons, had even told him he’d do the same for him since their hands are alike, but every time he asked he kept meeting the same answer: they’re not ready yet, little brother.

Lo’ak feels a smile form on his face as Spider hands him one of the bows. “Can’t do worse, now can we?”

And it works, if only in making the arrow actually fly. They don’t hit any proper targets, not really, but the brothers get lost in the actions nonetheless, in the advice they have heard or the one they make up, in their make-believe games of joining the Hunt both on land and up above.

Even when Dad finds them, a stern look in his eyes as he notices the state of them and his bow, neither of them can quite erase the smile from their expressions.

(Neither can their Dad.)

Once, Jake heard a teacher say to another, “Don’t be fooled by his quieter demeanor, that Tommy Sully is as much of a menace as his twin.”

His brother is hella smart, Jake knows, nose constantly stuck in a book and endless questions that get them into trouble more often than not. He never complains though, because Tommy is always interested in something at least vaguely intriguing, and Jake is always there by his side to pull him out if it turns into something he can’t handle.

(It’s really not that often. Tommy, as he said, is really smart, as he is petty and good at not getting caught. That Brandon kid still runs away at their sight, the little shit.)

So no matter what Tommy gets into his head to do, Jake follows. They steal books from the library to read them under the cover of night with the help of a dying flashlight, they dare each other to climb abandoned buildings and collect the best shaped rocks they can find, they listen to the other talk and talk as no one else lets them. Mom gets tired easily these days, and she loses focus in the middle of conversations, it doesn’t matter if they are about the piling bills or what Ms. Lovell assigned for homework or Pandora itself. But Jake listens whenever Tommy dreams out loud of flying to the stars to study plants, and Tommy is always ready to playact with Jake stories of daring and adventure.

They’re joined by the hip, those Sully kids are. The one with the dorky glasses and the mischievous look is the Tommy one, his brother half a step behind him, fists always raised and ready.

Maybe siblings is the word for what this story is about.

Kiri is the best at getting them into trouble. She gets this look in her eyes that lets Neteyam know she won’t be persuaded against whatever idea just crawled into her head and he knows to get excited and brace himself for a new adventure. Spider never tells her no, and Lo’ak never tells him no, so it falls to him to make sure his siblings don’t go be stupid all by themselves.

But, he will admit that Kiri’s plans are always fun.

His sister gets the brightest grin on her face just before they are about to do something they really shouldn’t, like jumping from really high branches hoping the leaves will catch them. Her complete trust in the forest around them is contagious, and so is her laughter whenever she jumps from one tree to another, all three of them trailing behind her.

“Follow me!” she calls, and so they do. How could they not? When it feels like their sister will bring them above the clouds themselves without the help of an ikran, and when they’re done and dirty and their muscles hurt from exertion, she will still find a way to get them to play in the stream near Hometree, splashing around with mischief in her eyes. Spider and Lo’ak are quick to follow her in her games, even when Lo’ak is almost falling asleep on his feet and Spider has new scrapes all over his skin from their most recent activities, but Neteyam is not the one to leave his siblings behind, so off he goes too, to new games and adventures.

And even when their parents find them out, Mom checking over them with little patience (You could have gotten hurt! She says, going over Spider’s arms and Loa’k’s torso and Kiri’s head) and Dad sternly reminding them that they have rules for a reason, one exchanged look with his siblings is all he needs to burst into laughter again, Kiri’s the loudest and brightest among them.

Perhaps, it’s a story about little and big moments, snapshots in time that make up a life.

Neteyam sits patiently next to his mother, watching her wrap one of the meat-filled rolls they will eat tonight. He makes sure to watch with close attention, intent on getting it right on the first try.

She’s teaching him a new meal tonight, carefully going through all the motions to prepare it, answering his questions with a calm voice that encourages him to think the answer through. He likes this, the time spent learning a new thing, but he likes the time spent with just his Mom even more. Their family is a large one, and he loves them all to pieces, but moments like this, where Mom is exclusively focused on him and he doesn’t need to worry about little siblings, well, they’re special too.

“Your turn, now, Neteyam.”

He copies all her movements with the ingredients she gives him, tongue sticking out in concentration, and grins brightly at her when he does, in fact, manage it on the first try.

Later, when Dad compliments his food and Spider and Lo’ak loudly ask for seconds, he’ll just press closer to Mom, hiding a smile in embarrassment and pride.

(The way Mom whispers well done, my son against the top of his head just makes him smile more.)

Neytiri remembers being taught that same meal next to Sylwanin and Tsu’tey, the same expression on her own face that she now sees mirrored in her son’s, and something tugs at her heartstrings.

Of all the illnesses his human kid could fall prey to on Pandora, the flu is truly the lesser of evils.

That, however, doesn’t stop it from becoming an entire ordeal. But, surprisingly, not in the way Jake was expecting, because his eldest just. Won’t. Rest. He shows up to morning lessons barely standing, with eyes half-open, trying his best to ignore the chills that make his body shake at every other moment; they got his fever down just the night before, and Jake will be damned if it spikes up again.

(“Sleep,” Neytiri had said, firmly setting their child down on the hammock inside his room. “Allow your body to heal.”

“But, Mom-” A cough had interrupted his protests. “I have lessons and I promised to help Tsuyo and-”

“Rest, Spider. Please.”)

He picks his half delirious child up, to said delirious child protests; he throws him carefully over his shoulder, like he remembers doing to Tommy, a lifetime ago.

A voice in the back of his mind knows this is more than love for the lessons and the forest, that this is, somehow, Spider’s way of keeping proving himself worthy to the eyes of the Clan. Jake doesn’t know how to tell him that he doesn’t need to, that his place is by their side.

With words would be a good place to start, says a voice that sounds too much like Tommy’s. Jake has never been the best with words, so he just tucks in his child again, promising him to stay by his side when, in a raspy voice and with a puffy nose, Spider asks.

Always, Jake thinks, running a hand over Spider’s hair, watching him slowly fall back asleep.

“Get better, kiddo,” he whispers, as his own mother told him and Tommy ages ago. “You’ll play another day.”

“I’m fine,” whines Tommy in his memories. He drags his feet behind Jake, cleaning his nose with the sleeves of his hoodie.

“‘Course, you are,” answers the child Jake barely remembers being in return. He sees himself picking Tommy up, to his brother’s protests, carrying him back to their house and to their room. “But we can keep playing another day.”

Lessons with Grandmother are Kiri’s favourite.

She never talks down to her when she’s explaining something, never runs out of patience when dealing with Kiri’s questions and doesn’t treat Kiri like a little kid as she teaches.

Still, the best part is that Grandmother never makes Kiri feel weird whenever she gets distracted by things only she can hear, or when her eyes get lost in thought and misses half the lesson. Where her parents would get a concerned frown in between their eyes or her brothers would tease and distract her, Grandmother will just gently take her by the shoulders, keep speaking in the same firm tone until Kiri is brought back to herself. She will repeat the things Kiri might have missed, guide her hands, eyes and thoughts through rituals and ceremonies that have been intertwined with the Omaticaya for generations.

Grandmother is also a fantastic listener.

It doesn’t matter if Kiri speaks, hums or whispers, Grandma pays attention and, on occasions, joins her. As they weave or count or pray, their voices join together in song and understanding, echos Young and Old coming together as one. Grandma will look at her, then, as if they shared a secret only the two of them were aware of, and Kiri will feel a smile form on her face without permission.

Mom is going to kill him.

He lived a good, happy life, though certainly a short one ‘cause, who would have thought seven years was all he was going to get? Lo’ak can see it all perfectly: Mom will walk inside Grandmother’s Nook, where she left Lo’ak specifically in charge, discover he managed to lose his baby sister and throw him off of Hometree in return.

Great mother, he didn’t know babies could move that fast. She crawled right out of his sight, even though he is sure she is still around…somewhere. Why does Grandma even have all this stuff laying around?

Taking a deep breath, Lo’ak starts to look around again. He swears he just heard Tuk giggle, so he calls, “Tuk? Tuk, come out, please.”

Louder giggles, somewhere behind Grandma’s loom. As sneakily as he can -he really, really doesn’t want her to bolt again- he makes his way over.

There she is, all wrapped up in between discarded pieces of weaving, laughing brightly at him as if she didn’t just spend the last ten minutes giving him a heart attack. He kneels by her side, slowly removing her from the knot she tangled herself in, tickling her as he does both to keep her laughing and to distract her from what he’s doing.

“You’re lucky it’s your birthday,” Lo'ak tells her once he finishes the untangling and has her in his arms. She’s getting big, his baby sister, and part of him can’t help but wonder if how he’s feeling at her sight is anything similar to what his older siblings felt when he grew up. It’s weird to be the older brother for once. “Or you’d be in so much trouble.”

In a big pile, as the sun settles, the Sullys prepare to sleep.

Lo’ak and Kiri are safe in their father’s arms, Neteyam on his shoulder. Tuk is carefully held in her mother’s, Spider practically laying on her side. They are a mismatch of bodies and sizes, so much so that a stranger would be hard pressed to tell where one ends and the other begins. Murmurs of many conversations going on at once and laughter surround them.

Jake and Neytiri exchange looks over their children, and flashes of time long gone spark in their eyes: a different hammock, a different tree, different sets of arms safeguarding her sleep. An old mattress, a dying light, a brother with skinny arms. They mix with the now, the foot in Jake’s clavicle and the five-fingered, pale hand surrounding Neytiri’s middle, and happiness has never felt so simple.

This is a story about hurts and losses, about joys and tears. This is a story about a family.