Chapter Text
Neytiri does not see when they kill her mate, but she hears it. The rattle of that dreaded gunfire, the low thump that echoes through the forest, the stricken look on her children’s faces.
She kills as many as she can, after. Heart burning, hands steady, shooting arrow after arrow.
But she is too late. They have already taken her children. They have already taken her mate.
-
When the forest is silent, she scrambles to her mate. Lifts him, but his body is fading warmth and his skin is ashen-navy and his back is wet with blood and she feels as though she might scream. Her gut is twisting, twisting, rage and grief and a familiar, unconsolable hopelessness. She hugs him to her chest. He does not stir.
First, the grief, tearing its way through her chest, carving her heart in half, pulling screams from her throat.
Then, the anger.
-
She returns home. That human boy is nowhere to be seen (good riddance, she thinks. It is his own father that has caused this. That has taken her children, that has killed her mate.)
The chatter stills when she walks. She walks to her mother. Her mother, who understands; her mother, who has lost her own mate, her own daughter.
“They have killed him,” she whispers, and her mother’s face drops, and she draws Neytiri into a hug that does little to soothe the ache in her chest. “They have taken our children,” she says, voice hitching, tail flicking, and her mother holds her tighter.
“They will come home again,” her mother soothes. “Eywa will guide them back.” Neytiri barely hears her: her heart is too torn. “I will find them,” she says, and her mother stills. “I will get them back. I will bring them home. I will kill them all.” Her voice is strong. Her gaze is fierce.
She will not be swayed.
-
“At least take some warriors, my daughter,” her mother says. She is bandaging the cut on Neytiri’s arm. “It is not wise to rush into a place like that.”
“I know how to hunt in silence,” Neytiri says. “If I bring too many, they will find us. No, I will find their weaknesses; I will get my children back; and I will kill them all.”
“There are many of them. There is a reason why Jake Sully did not attack their base -”
“Our children were not stuck there, before! They may be - I do not want to think what those demons are doing to my children.”
“They are smart children. Brave.”
“That does not mean they cannot be killed,” Neytiri says, and her voice is rough. “They need their mother. They need my help. I cannot deny them that.”
“And if you get yourself killed?” Her mother’s voice holds the strength of a Tsahik. “If they lose both their parents?”
“I will not,” Neytiri says. “I will not act until I know how to destroy them all.”
“And if you cannot?”
“Then I will not act until I know how to take my children back.”
They get jostled along. They’ve tied them all up with rope - even little Tuk, behind Lo’ak. Neteyam’s shoulders are high, trembling, his tail flicking, and Lo’ak knows he’s trying to look strong, trying to reassure the rest of them that everything will be okay.
But Dad is dead.
Lo’ak feels his eyes prickle at the thought, his throat raw, his stomach tight. He can hear Tuk, behind him, sniffling; can hear Kiri’s footsteps - usually so even, so loose - stumbling and hitching. He keeps his eyes on his feet. When his vision blurs, and his first tears fall - he wants his Dad, he wants his Dad - he forces himself to keep walking.
The ache in his chest grows and grows. The ground under his feet feels cold. Everytime one of those demons laugh, he feels like punching them in the face. You killed my father. You killed my father.
He wants to kill them all.
But - how? With what weapons? With what strength?
He doesn’t think he’s ever felt so useless in his life.
They walk them into a helicopter. It’s cramped, air strange, musty. They sit on the ground. Those demons have guns pointed at them; they’ll be shot if they try anything. Lo’ak tries to press his knee to Neteyam’s, tries to link his fingers with Tuk’s, tries to shuffle closer to Kiri, but it doesn’t really work. He breathes in their warmth, the strange air, feels the rough, cold floor beneath him, and feels like his heart is splitting in two.
-
They usher them into a room, first. They don’t untie the ropes. Lo’ak’s hands are aching, prickling, wrists stinging.
“General Frances Ardmore,” one of them announces, and a woman walks inside. Lo’ak’s stomach drops. She’s appraising them, sharp and still and frightening. He hears Kiri draw in a breath, next to him.
“Don’t be rude, you little brats,” Quaritch hisses, and Lo’ak resists the urge to deck him, to wrangle his hands somehow around his neck and squeeze. (At least Spider’s safe, he tries to think, but it doesn’t really work. His gut still tightens in fear; his heart still clenches in grief.)
The General’s eyes are cold, cruel. “We need the woman, too. We want them all dead. If we don’t quell the lot, we can’t mine the gold underneath their feet. Find her. Kill her.”
Mom, Tuk mouths, and Lo’ak hides her behind him, blood running cold. Kiri makes a strangled noise, and Neteyam swallows, tail flicking behind him, hands trembling.
They’re stuck in some glass cage, white on white. Cold. Foreign. Lo’ak turns to his siblings. “Mom and Spider will find us,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
He doesn’t think he sounds convincing.
Neytiri prepares. Her gut is roiling with grief. Her mother gives her food and she eats it and it tastes like ash on her tongue. Her father’s bow and arrow; enough food to last her a week.
Reconnaissance, Jake would say. Identify your target first. Learn all you can about them. Neytiri thinks of teaching her children to hunt: learn the ground, slow your steps, keep your ears open; strike once, confidently, silently. Even that sends a pang through her heart.
(Tuk has been wanting to learn how to hunt. When Neytiri brings her home, she will teach her.)
She carves as many bows as she can carry, even if she will not need to use them, this time. At night, she thinks, instead of falling into an uneasy sleep; remembers what Jake has told her about security, and alarms; about their fortified walls, their many guards.
They will know her face. If they see her, they will sound an alert.
She will have to kill them, first.
She bids her goodbyes before dawn. They will give her mate to Eywa, but first - she needs her children. They need to say their goodbyes as much as she does. They need to feel the love of the mother as much as her: pulsing through her, strong and steadying, turning her grief and anger to determination.
“Be safe,” her mother says. “And come back once you have learnt. You do not need to do this alone, my daughter.”
She knows - how she knows - but she must. These are her children; that was her mate.
She makes it as far as the forest, home distant behind her, when she sees the change in the dirt, hears the sound of breathing. She notches her arrow to her bow and waits.
He comes.
The human boy. He’s sniffling, breath ghosting out of him, hissing, eyes red.
She does not lower her bow.
He stammers out a greeting, when he sees her. (Late. He should have spotted her before. Her children would have.)
“What are you doing here?” Her voice is harsh.
“I - I just thought…” his voice is rough. “Maybe I could find them? Maybe - if I give myself up, Quaritch would -”
“Stupid,” Neytiri hisses. “You would get yourself killed. You would get us all killed.”
The boy draws back. His hands tremble. Neytiri’s hands are steady. (If he wants to shoot a bow, he must learn to keep his hands still.)
“I want them back, too,” he says, quietly. His voice is hoarse with grief. Familiar. He is a stranger to her, to her mate, but to her children -
She lowers her bow.
“Let me help you.”
And Neytiri - brimming with anger, pulsing with grief, a scream trapped in her throat - stares at him. Cheeks splotchy, eyes wide, wild, palms clenched.
“Fine.”