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“Quispe?”
The green ikran perks her head from where she eyes the body of water, an inquisitive chirp in her syrinx as she stalks towards him.
Lo’ak lifts his hands in the air and inches backwards, averting his sight sideways to avoid eye contact while still keeping the large predator in his peripheral vision.
After the… abrupt departure of Neteyam, Quispe is, for all means and purposes, a feral animal who’s free to roam until the end of time.
The first war the reef people suffered concluded with great devastation for Metkayina and Omatikaya alike. Downtrodden, everyone returned to Awa’latu, only to find the other ikrans waiting at the beach, startled out of hiding when they heard and felt the unnatural disturbance in the air.
He and Dad had just lowered Neteyam to the ground when Quispe started approaching, backing away slowly to join their family in a circular berth while the Metkayina stood much further away. Silent tears streamed down their faces as they watched Quispe nudge at her rider’s unmoving body with low, gentle croons in her throat, but their muffled sounds of anguish couldn’t be bitten back any longer once she offered Neteyam a kuru, her lively strands intertwining with limp tendrils.
She croaked and looked up at them— at Lo’ak.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. His knees hit the sand, hands reaching out to hold his brother’s cold body. “I’m sorry.” He hunched over to rest his forehead on the static heart, clutching at Neteyam’s limbs. “Neteyam, Quispe,” he rasped, “I’m so sorry.”
Through his blurred vision, he saw Quispe pull away and escape into the darkening sky.
On the next day, Lo’ak and his family had searched the entire island for his brother’s ikran, only to come up short. The consensus was that Quispe had left for good, finally finding peace with the definite end of a chapter upon the sight of her sole rider’s motionless body.
But now she’s back, after so many months of Neteyam’s passing. Did she return to the mountains like they thought she did and make the trip back? Or is she just taking a break in her travel itinerary around Pandora?
Honestly, Lo’ak neither knows nor cares and is just pulling shit out of his ass now to distract himself into staying calm while Quispe and her sharp teeth are right next to his bare throat.
A hot breath blows against his cheek, and Lo’ak has to physically clench his fists by his hips in order to stop himself from flinching. Thankfully, Quispe pulls away without any enactment of violence—which is odd, by the standards of a wild predator—and yips a sound as she looks around.
There’s an uncontrollable jolt that escapes Lo’ak when a second ikran—his precious blue—drops down on the jungle ground next to him.
Knowing how territorial tamed ikrans can get toward other unbroken and feral ikrans, Lo’ak readies to grab his knife from his pouch, steadying Naiche by his neck with his other hand.
Hurting the only living connection he has left of Neteyam isn’t something he wants to do, but he will if it comes down to it.
The ikrans tilt their heads at each other, bodies shifting as they take in the other. When they mutually go in to sniff, Lo’ak begins to pray, to hope he doesn’t have to rid the final part of Neteyam he had relinquished when he returned to Eywa. To his utmost surprise, thank the Great Mother, Naiche simply pulls back, croaks a friendly greeting and bobs his head in unison with Quispe, not unlike how they usually would in the past, before the green ikran takes off through the canopy of trees.
Lo’ak takes a blessing as is, drops his tense posture, pats down the kuru of his ikran until he reaches the end, and stretches back to grab his own.
Tsaheylu forms breezily between rider and ikran. Images and feelings flicker through their shared connection, refreshed and anew after weeks of no contact. Lo’ak chuckles when memories of Naiche teasing his new pack’s cubs and getting into trouble with their mother filters through. He pats the skin-level scratch his ikran received from it and sends over his own updates of Payakan, Tsireya, his family, and how his life has been recently.
An idea of Lo’ak riding Naiche, and them soaring over the skies to meet Payakan flows into his mind. He can’t help but allow a burst of excitement overtake him at the thought. Naiche lifts his head in a victorious roar and disconnects their link to move over to the marui where his family stores their riding equipment.
Three or five hooks and ribbons later, Lo’ak flips on his flying visor and swings his leg over Naiche’s back to take off into the sky.
Cheers and hollers erupt from Lo’ak. The cold air batters against his form as he twists and flips in the clear blue sky. Climbing higher and higher into the clouds, he can almost hear Neteyam’s jives and laughter like a physical presence.
Lo’ak glances over his shoulder to watch his four fingers carve lines into the clouds below them, and he brings his arm back up to dry his moistened hands on Naiche’s scaly body.
Despite already being wet, Naiche yelps in protest, barrel rolling and diving abruptly without a forewarning. Hysterical cackles bubble out of his rider and he feels him press close, closer, allowing them to pick up speed as they accelerate towards the ocean.
Just when they’re about to plummet, Naiche breaks the fall by twirling into a horizontal glide, submerging part of his wings and his rider underwater for a second or two.
When they return to their upright position, Lo’ak hisses and tugs at Naiche’s unoccupied kuru, his stomach fluttering. “You bitch!” A scene of Naiche disconnecting their tsaheylu and dropping him in the middle of the ocean flashes briefly through their connection. “Don’t you dare! The equipment is heavy!”
Lo’ak yelps and grips harder when Naiche feigns a jerk to jostle him off. “Asshole!” He scowls as Naiche chortles into the wind. “Next time I crave Omatikaya cuisine, you will be the first thing I cook into a dish!”
When he spots the familiar asymmetrical shape in the distance, Lo’ak’s mood is gone in a blink and he flags a free arm erratically in the air to catch the large animal’s attention. “Payakan!” He urges them forward, and Naiche picks up speed, now that they have a destination in mind. “Payakan, wait up!”
<Brother,> Payakan greets warmly the moment they come to a stop in his line of sight, a crinkle at his eye. <It’s been a while.>
Naiche hovers, unsure if he’s allowed to land. Lo’ak scoffs, his hands forming the signs as he speaks. “Not for the lack of trying, on my part.” A low bellow vibrates from Payakan and water erupts from his blowhole as he turns away in indignation. Lo’ak cackles, Naiche squawks, when some of the remnants splatter on them. “Gross, Dude!”
Clicks of laughter surround them, a gentle eye lands on Naiche. <Brother of mine,> he coos, <come rest on me. My exterior is tough, and the sea is steady, you will neither tire nor harm me.> He lifts his undamaged fin to the waters’ surface, an offer of kinship. <I know it must be exhausting to carry such a heavy load.>
“Heavy— Are you calling me fat!?”
Gurgling in amusement, Naiche lowers them gently onto Payakan and hooks his talons on the edge of the fin to anchor them.
The waves lap at his claws and feet, mildly wetting his wings. He doesn’t mind it, he’s been needing a bath anyway. Maybe he’ll go for a dip once that rotund rider of his dismounts; otherwise, he might just sink and drown.
“Hey, I heard that!” Lo’ak hisses. Naiche snaps playfully at his feet as his rider slides off, but Lo’ak pushes his nape away and ushers him off with a point and waggle of his index finger. “Fatshaming is so not cool!” When Naiche bites gummily on his wrist, Lo’ak wrestles the ikran’s neck into a headlock and shakes him side to side until he manages to escape with a dive into the calm ocean.
<You seem to be doing well.>
Dropping to a sit, Lo’ak flops back on the fin with a heavy sigh. “That’s one way to put it!” He scrubs his face with a fist, draping his arm over his eyes. “Things have been going, I guess.”
The water caresses him, rocks him gently like a baby in a hammock.
<Do you wish to talk?> Lo’ak peeks over his arm to meet Payakan’s steady gaze, one that looks into his soul and understands it fully. <It might help.>
Thoughts run through his head, both self-deprecating and rooted in reality. Lo’ak takes a deep breath and turns to face him. “Yeah, sure. That… that might help.”
A moment of silence passes over them, interrupted only by the caws of birds and splashes of the sea. Closing his eyes, Lo’ak can almost hear Eywa’s heartbeat: mighty yet tranquil, a sound that’s embedded into every living being even before their first breath, all loving and ever encompassing, just how Kiri preaches.
“My dad—” The words come out weak, exactly unlike what his family needs. He doesn’t know how to put up a front, how to show up everyday with a smile, how to brave the enemies, how to become what his father expects of him. How did Neteyam, his precious older brother, put up with this and so much more, all his life? “Neteyam…” He chuckles. “Neteyam has a soft heart, y’know?”
He silently thanks Payakan for staying quiet at his little slip up.
“I remember. Back… Back when we were young, back before the sky people returned, Neteyam was always the one who got hurt the most.” A wet laugh bubbles out of him at the memories. “And I don’t mean, like, physically or anything. I mean mentally, or— or empathetically, more like.” He rubs his knuckles, biting his lower lip to stop the trembles. “He would cry. He would cry so much. Not— Not in front of us, but, like, in secret, y’know?
“You know him. He’s good at keeping up a tough front. Acting all cool and shit, pretending he’s the ‘Mighty Warrior’ and all that bullshit. Bah!” Lo’ak rolls his eyes, waving his hands around in the air.
“But… But I did find him once,” he admits. “He was— Well. Hn. I-I can’t even describe it.” The memory flashes in his mind, crystalline as the shallow lake they used to play around in. “He was crying, sobbing, into his knees. I-I’ve never seen him cry before that day, y’know? I always thought of him as our protector. Our older, wiser, smarter, stronger big brother, who could never feel sad and could never do wrong.
“I approached him, sat next to him, and asked him what was wrong.” He chuckles. “He told me nothing was wrong. He lied to me, like the fucking liar he was, literally right to my face. Then he cleared his throat, wiped his tears, and ushered me back off to sleep.” He shrugs. “And I dunno where else he went to cry off his emotions ever since. He’s good at being quiet when he wants to.”
He wiggles closer to Payakan, curling into a ball. “Kiri told me later that Neteyam does that often: goes off into the night after all of us are asleep, just to grieve by himself.” He lowers his voice. “She said it’s because he’s worried, scared, pained, for us. I was like, ‘No way! Neteyam doesn’t cry!’ Or, well, not that much, at least. Then she stared at me like I was stupid—which I probably was, to be fair—and whispered to me the signs to look out for when his feelings got hurt.”
His lower lip was probably bleeding by now with how much he was gnawing on it. “When— When I yelled at him that day,” his voice softens, a break in his sentence, “I… I saw it. Clear as day. I’ve never seen it so obviously before.
“His face— He… He looks so much like Mom, y’know? I could— I could almost see her doing the same thing.” He wraps his arms around himself. “Wh-When I told him that— When I lied and said that he wasn’t my brother, he— Aha—”
Lo’ak sniffles. “His ears pulled back, and his eyes— His eyes widened. You know what a zukzuk is, right? They have these huge, big, innocent eyes that’re almost too big on their faces, yeah, those creatures. Imagine ever hurting one of those animals. Who would, right? They’d have to be evil, cruel beyond belief, right?” He chuckles self-deprecatively. “Well, you’re looking at one of them.”
Payakan croons, a wordless low vibrato of comfort.
“The thing is, I-I knew I hurt him. I could see it in the way he stepped back, in the way he pulled away, in the way his ears tilted downwards, in the way his shell shattered and matched the time I caught him in the act of sobbing his heart out all those years ago.” He remembers wide golden eyes, innocent and kind despite all the war they’ve suffered through, glistening with a sheen of tears. He remembers a brave front, faltering with such unmasked profound hurt. “He would’ve run off to bawl about it later that night, if— if the battle ended differently. It would’ve been the worst breakdown ever. All of Awa’latu would be able to hear him.”
Lo’ak rubs his chest, over the area Neteyam got shot in. “He and I, we’d— we’d never fix what I broke, b-but…” He hiccups, hot tears slipping from his eyes. “But at least I’d still have him…”
#
Embarrassingly, Lo’ak stayed and blubbered his heart out to Payakan until it turned dark. Payakan never complained, listening quietly and offering his opinion when Lo’ak asked for it.
Naiche drifted about too, but never once voiced his thoughts or even pretended to look like he was paying attention.
Lo’ak didn’t take offense to it, he understood. Naiche chose and first connected with him when he was still young, wild, and carefree. They saw and recognised each other as a place of escape, of adventure, and is thus what makes up the foundation of their bond. Deep emotions and all that gooey stuff are stiff and uncomfortable between the two of them, so they tend to stay out of it and only engage in the fun and thrilling parts of their lives together.
Naiche dove, floated, and flew aimlessly until he got bored enough to poke and annoy Lo’ak into finally leaving. Lo’ak and Payakan said their goodbyes, and Naiche gently bumped his head on the tulkun in greeting before they went their separate ways.
The night wind whips against his face, cold despite them cruising a mere few feet above water. Suddenly, in the silence, Naiche lifts his head and chitters quietly.
A visual of moving stars enter Lo’ak’s mind, followed by a memory of a particular green ikran’s tanhì.
Lo’ak lifts his gaze in the same direction, having to squint in order to make out the form in the dark. They pull to a stop at Lo’ak’s command, and he hushes Naiche with comforting pats on his neck when he feels him about to squawk in confusion.
He dims his tanhì and cues Naiche to do the same, watching Quispe coast obliviously by them. Lo’ak pushes the message of stealth, silent, hidden as he prompts Naiche to trail her from a distance.
It’s not long later when Lo’ak recognises the place they’re headed to, the unmistakable luminescence of the underwater plants further in front.
Quispe slows and lands on the shoreline near Neteyam’s resting place, tilting her head at the yellow glow of the spiritual anemone. While she’s distracted, Lo’ak leads Naiche to circle around and settle on the sand further back, creeping behind plant growth.
The green ikran treads forward until her operculum is right above the water. Her slow, deep breaths are loud in the quiet night as she lowers her head to sniff around the surface.
Lo’ak returns Naiche’s confused gaze when the next few minutes pass uneventfully like so. He’s about to call it and go home when Quispe lets out a shrill shriek and plunges into the ocean.
Alarm shoots up his spine, and he urges Naiche forward, only for him to protest and stay hidden. Yellow eyes flicker from the stilling ripples to the area around it, and is left wondering whether his brother’s ikran just committed suicide or if it got dragged in by a sea predator.
After a rigid few seconds, bubbles disturb the tranquil surface and Quispe re-emerges from the water with something huge in her mouth. Her struggling causes loud waves and splashes, chasing away the squid lanterns circling around as she trudges back to shore. Once in shallow enough water, the chattel is dropped unceremoniously before she squawks and takes off without a glance back.
Lo’ak waits until she becomes but a speck in the dark sky to split tsaheylu with Naiche and sprint towards the abandoned possession. He crouches next to the— the Na’vi?
He detaches the txampaysye and releases it back into the water, just as the Na’vi lurches upwards and over with a series of harsh coughs.
“Hey, hey.” Lo’ak thumps the Na’vi’s back when they try to take a breath, only to choke and fall into another fit of lung wrenching gags. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Take deep breaths, calm yourself.” The skin under his palm rises shakily, heart thundering, and deflates. “Good, good. You’re doing amazing. Try again, slow your heart. With me, slowly: in… and out.” When the Na’vi’s pulse finally stabilises, Lo’ak pulls his hand from their back to offer them a hand up. “Do you mind telling me your—”
In his haze of panic, Lo’ak didn’t register it, but…
The dark blue skin this Na’vi has is certainly not one of the reef people. He quickly glances down at the hand supporting their weight—one, two, three fingers on the sand—and heaves a sigh of relief…
…only to jerk back when the Na’vi’s head lifts and inclines in his direction.
Messy medium-sized knotless braids cascade down to their shoulder blades, partially shielding their face while a humanlike set of bunny teeth, with four distinct but blunt canines, grins up shakily at him.
Lo’ak’s breath gets stuck in his throat.
A film—a nictitating membrane, Tsireya’s sweet voice echoes in his head—flicks over vibrant green eyes as a loose lock of white hair is huffed to the side. “Long time no see, Baby Bro.”