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The sound of her daughter's shuddering gasp in the nearby hammock startled Mo'at awake. A nightmare, no doubt. After all the recent tragedy, tormented dreams stalked the clan like a pack of relentless nantang; Neytiri was likely not the only one sleeping poorly tonight.
Hardly two weeks had passed since the battle in the floating mountains, and just one since the Sky People departed and JakeSuli passed through the Eye of Eywa. Though the war itself was over, the heavy wounds and destruction it had left in its wake still lingered. It would take time to heal and rebuild.
Jake had seen to it that the building of a new village began as soon as possible; after all, the clan could not stay at Vitrayä Ramunong forever. There was still much work to be done…with no more Hometree to shelter them, the Omatikaya found themselves learning to build marui like some of the other clans. The Olangi survivors in particular seemed keen to teach them what they knew. Their clan had suffered the some of the highest casualties, and it seemed that keeping busy with the marui construction helped them cope with their grief.
Not every family had their own marui ready yet, but at least there was enough structure now that everyone had sufficient shelter from wind and rain, even if the few finished marui (and even some half-finished ones) were rather crowded at night. As for Mo'at herself, she currently spent her nights in a half-finished dwelling with her daughter and son-in-law.
Mo'at remained still in her hammock, wide-open eyes staring blankly out into the darkness as she listened, facing away from her temporary roommates. Though her daughter was grown, her maternal instincts yearned to get up and comfort her...but she knew she wouldn't need to when she heard another voice stir from the other hammock, still slightly slurred with sleep.
"Nnnntiri? Whaswrong? Rrrryouok?"
"Wha...oh. Forgive me, ma Jake, did I wake you?"
"Ah, yeah," Mo'at heard her son-in-law’s voice slide into a yawn, then continue more clearly. "But don't worry about it. Did you have another nightmare?"
There was no verbal response, but Neytiri must have nodded, because Jake continued.
"I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it?"
"Oh…it...it was silly, I…” Neytiri's voice suddenly tapered off as though something strange had just occurred to her. Mo'at barely caught her next murmured gasp. "Wait. I woke you."
"Yeah, you did," agreed Jake.
"I woke you!" Neytiri repeated, louder and more frantic. Mo'at hoped the couple didn't notice her slight start of surprise at the sudden volume; she didn't want to interrupt.
"Hey, hey, it's ok!" Jake assured. "I don't mind. It's ok. Nightmares happen, y'know? I'm not mad—"
"No, ma Jake, you are not understanding," Neytiri insisted, tone raw and earnest. "My dream, it...it was not about the battle, or about Hometree, or anything...it...it was..."
She paused, and Mo'at sensed that she was a bit abashed to explain, trying to find the right words. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, more shy.
"Ma yawntu...do you remember the night we first mated? And in the morning, those terrible machines came and began tearing up the ground..." ...her voice began to tremble slightly... "...a-and they did not see us...or did not care...they were coming towards us, they would have torn us too, and I was trying to wake you...I called and called your name...but you were far away, in your other body. You could not hear me. I…I dreamed of that day again.”
Mo'at lay still, stunned. She knew, of course, that the couple had been at Utraya Mokri the night before it was destroyed. She hadn't known that Jake's own dreamwalk-body had come so close to being destroyed itself.
Neytiri's voice cracked as she continued, and with a light pang in her heart Mo'at could imagine the tears leaking from her daughter's eyes. "I felt such fear, that day, and in the dream...I was trying so hard to pull you out of the way, but I did not have enough strength. I could not pull you fast enough. And so I continued to call and call and call, even though I knew that nothing I could do would rouse the dreamwalk-body...”
Neytiri's shuddering voice trailed off again, and for a moment all Mo'at could hear was the nighttime ambience and the occasional sniffle behind her. Then Jake's voice came through, soft and warm and achingly tender.
"Oh, baby. Oh baby, come here."
Mo'at could not help herself. As surreptitiously as possible, she turned her head to peek at the couple. They were embracing, Neytiri's face buried into Jake's chest, her back to Mo'at. Jake had one arm wrapped snugly around her, soothingly running his fingers through her braids with the other. His eyes were closed as he nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek.
Mo'at turned away again before either of them could notice that she wasn’t sleeping.
"I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Jake was crooning softly. "But you never have to do it ever again. I'm not a dreamwalker anymore. I will always be in this body, and I will always be here for you. You can wake me whenever you want, whenever you need me, I'm here. Ok?"
"I love you so much," Neytiri whispered, so quietly that Mo'at could barely pick it up.
"I love you too," assured Jake, and Mo'at thought she heard him softly kiss her forehead.
The couple didn't say anything more after that, seemingly content to just hold and comfort each other until they, presumably, drifted back off to sleep.
Mo'at let out a steady sigh. Though she had not left her hammock, her instinct to comfort her daughter had been satiated; it brought her a certain sense of peace to know that, despite the apparent impulsiveness of their decision, her daughter had bonded to a good-hearted man. She, too, thought back to that day when Neytiri had marched back into the village hand-in-hand with the dreamwalker, boldly proclaiming their union. Mo'at had been furious, and underneath that, flabbergasted. She knew that neither Neytiri nor Tsu'tey had ever been particularly thrilled about their engagement, all things considered, but they had still both agreed to it for the sake of clan tradition. How could Neytiri act so rashly to ruin what little semblance of normalcy and tradition remained after Sylwanin's untimely death? It had seemed so selfish, so short-sighted, and the last silly thing the clan needed at that time.
But in the following weeks, amidst all the chaos and strife, her opinion had softened. When Jake returned to the clan as Toruk Makto, she knew that this dreamwalker—whatever his faults, whatever his past mistakes—had the trust and endorsement of Eywa herself, and how could Mo'at argue with that? And since then, as she observed his interactions with her daughter, she began to See more and more the surety of their bond. Though a small thing, the interaction she had overheard tonight had cemented her fledgling belief that, however unorthodox their union had been, JakeSuli was a worthy mate for her daughter after all.
Mo'at took another deep breath and slowly closed her eyes. Yes, there was still much work to be done. It would still take much time for the clan to heal and rebuild.
But they would be ok.