Chapter Text
The day I’m born is the day our Home Tree falls.
So, I am born into the smoke, into the burning sequoia groves and the screams of my people as our home and our lives are set on fire by RDA ships.
One thing about Na’avi women: they are very hard to kill. I am carried by my mother through the ash and the blood, after-birth blood slicking her arms as she runs us to safety just minutes after giving birth. But what is safety when death rains down from above in the shape of a giant RDA C-21 Dragon? When our lives are ripped out from under the ground like the roots of Home Tree itself, when her family dies right in front of her eyes, crushed under burning logs.
In the end, her wounds are too severe. They had to leave all supplies behind; there were no herbs, and not enough time. They cannot save her.
They tell me my father was one of the best hunters in the Omatikaya. That he fought alongside Toruk Macto and Tsu'tey te Rongloa Ateyitan in that great war that drove the humans away. They said he got to hold me just one time before he left for the battle from which he did not return.
When I am born, it is under the watchful eyes of the Vitraya Ramunong, her bio-luminescent weeping willows swaying in the night. I am born whole and healthy; my mother makes sure of it before she passes.
They name me Jun Te että zeangew'itan, after the full moon in that long, lonely night. After my parents, who were so loved by the clan, and who never got to live this life with their boy.
Sometimes, I wish I could remember the sound of my mother’s voice. Just that. If I am not meant to have a life with her, I wish I could have that much. I meet them when I am connected to the Tree of Souls, of course. They never really died, as the Omatikaya say. They live on within Eywa. Sometimes, when the forest is quiet, I sneak away to the Tree of Souls. I lie beneath her roots and listen for that realm between the dead and the living. I can feel my parents’ arms around me, hear their voices carried through Eywa’s breath.
But when I wake, it’s always the same—like I’m rising from a long, distant dream, and I feel their loss even more sharply than before. The Tsa’hik warns me not to linger with the dead. She says Eywa might one day decide to keep me.
I grow up drifting among the many families in the clan. Among the weaver women, who take turns making me clothes as my mother would have. The hunters teach me to shoot a bow, correcting my grip with gentle patience they do not always give the other boys. The Sky people scientists teach me about the many amusing human traditions. Like waffles. And The Beatles.
I belong to everyone, and in that way, to no one. The clan raises me together, hands passing me from one fire to another—yet I always find my way back to the Sully family fire.
They are especially kind to me.
Nyetiri weaves my first bow. The Olo’eyktan, Toruk Macto, Jake, who maybe feels responsibility for me as the son of a dear friend, who teaches me how to ride my ikran. There’s Kiri, who sits with me in silence beneath the spirit trees, both in our own worlds. I know she sees the world in ways I cannot.
Spider, who trails after us, is another drifter, much like me.
And there’s Neteyam—Neteyam, who followed me everywhere as a child.
“Jun’s little shadow,” The older hunters tease.
“I am not so little.” Neteyam snaps every time, scowling from behind my shoulder.
I ruffle his head, laughing, “He is going to grow up a mighty warrior this one.”Even now, me at sixteen and he is fifteen, he is still a little shorter than me. He hates that. I can tell.
Lately, though, he keeps his distance. Adolescence changes things. So does being the eldest son of the Olo’eyktan. And when the Sky people return, suddenly there is no room for foolishness, no space for drifting boys.
Neteyam grows into someone steady, disciplined, sharp eyed. A fine rider. A good shot. Everything a future leader should be. Which is a lot more than I can say for that skxawng Lo’ak. I swear he cannot sleep unless he has caused trouble for at least one person before nightfall.
I grow up fast. By sixteen, I am already a good hunter, with steady hands and sharp ears. Among the fastest riders in the clan. I pass my coming-of-age without fanfare and take my place among the hunters. Among them, I am no longer a child born of loss. I am useful. I am needed.
In this war, I can protect people.