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“Yaìwi.”
Lo’ak shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t feel right.”
“Häew.”
“No.”
“Äsä,” Neteyam offers, a smile tucked in the corner of his mouth.
Lo’ak crinkles his nose. “Sounds like Sa’ata. Being a suck up with Mom is your thing.”
“Skxawng,” Neteyam shoots back with a halfhearted throw of damp moss. It sticks to Lo’ak’s rain-damp skin, quickly turning the clinging dirt to mud.
“Bro,” he groans, wiping at the mud until it disappears. “That’s gross.”
Neteyam slumps back into his ikran’s side with a grin. Lo’ak can't even find it in himself to be mad. He revels in the quiet and peace after his first flight. The cool air, the quiet pattering of rain on the treetops, and Neteyam experiencing it all with him.
Just the two of them, like Neteyam promised it would be.
“I give up,” Lo’ak groans, flopping back to curl into the warmth of his own ikran. Something bright and happy fills his chest. His ikran. His. The small part of Lo’ak that doubted he could is silent for once.
After a failed attempt, Lo’ak has finally done it. He's one step closer to completing his iknimaya. One step closer to being a warrior like his parents. Like Neteyam.
“How did you choose Eytxa?”
“I just knew,” Neteyam says with infuriating simplicity.
Lo’ak rolls his eyes. “Seriously, bro.”
“I am serious, Lo’ak.” Neteyam shrugs. “After we bonded and we took our first flight, she was Eytxa. I didn’t have to think or choose. It just was. She was Eytxa. Ma Eytxa,” he murmurs, scratching his fingers under the ikran’s chin.
Eytxa coos happily, head drooping to rest in Neteyam’s lap.
Lo’ak’s still unnamed ikran shifts. He stretches out his wing, and rainwater that gathered on his hide slips down Lo’ak’s back, making him yelp.
“Shit,” he snaps, jumping up to try and escape the cold. “That’s freezing.”
Lo’ak glares at his ikran. Neteyam doubles over, quiet laughter spilling from him, and Lo’ak glares at him too. It only makes Neteyam laugh harder, body shaking with the force of his amusement.
It’s nice to hear, even if Lo’ak would prefer Neteyam not laugh at him. But Neteyam doesn’t laugh enough these days. Today is a rare moment of peace—of freedom—for them both.
“Why don’t you do that?” Lo’ak huffs at his ikran, gesturing at Eytxa, carefully shielding Neteyam from the light rain. He shudders, shaking off the cold trailing down his spine.
His ikran ignores him, shuffling forward to stick his head out from under the cover they found when it started raining too hard for them to keep flying. His ikran’s wing almost knocks Lo’ak over as he tries to leave the tight grove of trees they’re sitting under.
“What are you doing?” Lo’ak snaps, dodging the tip of his wing again.
“I think he likes the rain,” Neteyam manages to say through his laughter.
Almost immediately, his ikran huffs deeply, settling with his snout just past the cover so he can feel the rain. He makes a low, rumbling noise deep in his chest and continues to sniff at the damp plants around him.
“Great,” Lo’ak grumbles, more show than anything else. “My ikran likes plants and weather. I’m trying to be a warrior, Neteyam.”
Neteyam doesn’t answer. Nothing snarking and playful, nor wise beyond his years. Lo’ak turns to complain to his brother, it’s really not funny, but his complaints die on his tongue at the contemplative look on Neteyam’s face.
“What is it, bro?”
“What about Sosul?”
“Huh?”
“You know, sosul, like mom and Kiri talk about,” Neteyam hesitates a moment, ears pulling back like he’s carefully contemplating each word before it leaves his mouth, “when it rains, the way it smells.” He shrugs. “It’s raining today, and he seems to like the rain so…”
“Sosul,” Lo'ak says carefully, testing its weight in his mouth.
“What do you think?” Neteyam asks.
“Sosul,” Lo’ak repeats, something warm settling in his chest. “It is a good name.”
“A strong name.”
Lo’ak brushes a hand over the warm hide of his ikran, tracing his deep blue markings. Warm despite the wet chill in the air. Lo’ak blinks harshly, trying to will away the urge to cry.
“Sosul,” he says again, low and soft. He lets his tongue curl around the sounds, testing out the rightness of them.
His ikran makes a low, rumbly noise that vibrates under Lo’ak’s hand, almost like a response to the name.
“What do you think?” Lo’ak murmurs, smoothing his hand over the ikran’s head. In a move he’s seen from Neteyam and his mother, Lo’ak pats the underside of the ikran’s chest, then scratches under his jaw, earning a small, contented rumble. “Ma Sosul.”
-
“Sosul!” Lo’ak shouts, muted pain flaring in his chest as Sosul shrieks in pain.
They crash into Wind Traders’ ship, and the impact ripples through his body. Lo’ak can feel the phantom arrow in his chest, burning with each breath he takes. Sosul shrieks again, claws scrabbling to cling to the woven anchor.
Panic beats a frantic rhythm under his skin as Lo’ak and Sosul both claw for a hold. His stomach swoops dangerously as they dangle in the air. Lo’ak feels rather than sees the arrows whizzing past him. He sends up a prayer to the Great Mother that none come close to them.
It’s an odd effect of tsaheylu for Lo’ak to feel the way he almost plunges to the ground as Sosul’s claws slip and simultaneously feel how his own weight makes it harder to cling to the falling ship.
Without thinking of the consequences, Lo’ak instinctively breaks tsaheylu, throwing his weight against the side of the ship. His sweaty palms search for purchase to keep himself up. Lo’ak is certain there will be rope burns on his palms later, but all he can think about now is lightening the load for Sosul.
Later, he’ll have to figure out how to remove the arrow. Later, he’ll have to figure out how to get Sosul back onto the ship, but Lo’ak can’t think any further than stopping Sosul’s fall now.
Every one of his muscles aches, trembling with exhaustion. Somehow, Lo’ak manages to drag himself up to a semi-stable perch.
He doesn’t even get a moment to rest. As soon as Lo’ak has a tenuous position on the ship’s anchors, he’s turning and blindly reaching out a five-fingered hand towards Sosul, desperate to keep him up.
Lo’ak won’t be able to lift him, deep down he knows that, but it’s instinct to reach for him anyway. Instinct to try and protect Sosul from the fall, the same way Sosul did for him, fighting through pain with the last of his strength to crash into the ship so Lo’ak would not fall.
One hand clings to the rope, the other straining to reach for his ikran. His ikran. His companion through everything. His confidante when only soaring through the sky could keep the darkness at bay.
“Sosul!” Lo’ak cries again, acrid fear coating his insides. His cry is drowned out by the shrieks of animals—of the dying Na’vi—around him.
Neteyam, he bites back as every muscle in his body strains to bridge the gap between them.
Neteyam, Lo’ak almost shouts, the name on the tip of his tongue as he watches his ikran barely cling to the ropes of the Wind Traders’ ship.
Lo’ak isn’t sure what he expects. Realistically, he knows he’ll never be able to pull Sosul’s weight up onto the ship. He won’t even be able to reach. And Sosul can’t lift himself, can't even fly somewhere for safety. He used the last of his strength to crash into the ship so Lo’ak wouldn’t fall.
And still pain rips through him when Sosul’s claw slips off the rope, scrabbling in open air, before he plumments, disappearing into burning smoke with a shriek.
It surprises him how much it hurts, how much the grief is still capable of crippling him, despite how plagued with loss his life has become.
It surprises him how much it feels like Neteyam, like losing him again. Flying with Sosul is the closest Lo’ak can get to having his brother back, and now he doesn’t even have that.
Sosul’s shrieks and Neteyam's labored breathing fill his ears. The memory of Sosul’s heaving chest under his hands and Neteyam’s chest stilling under his blood-slick hands.
It feels a little like losing his brother all over again.
Lo’ak watches him fall, his five fingers still reaching out for Sosul long after he’s disappeared from view. His useless, extra finger that couldn’t do anything. An extra finger that marks his father as a hero, and yet Lo’ak couldn’t save him.
Not Sosul. Not Neteyam.
Not himself, Lo’ak realizes as it becomes glaringly obvious that the Wind Traders’ ship is going down. The Mangkwan raiders are still firing burning arrows at the ship, making the air around him shimmer with heat.
“Lo’ak!” someone shouts, and his head whips up.
It’s his sisters and Spider, carefully packed onto Kiri’s ikran. At the sight of her, Kiri’s Häew, equal parts relief and pain burst inside his chest. Lo’ak should not be leaving this ship atop any ikran but his own. He should be leaving with Sosul.
“Jump!” Spider shouts.
Lo’ak shakes off the urge to search the skies for familiar blue wings. To wait for another rescue that won’t be coming.
He jumps, hardly thinking as his feet leave the ship. For a moment, Lo’ak hovers, suspended in the air. It almost feels like flying. Up until the moment he slams against Häew’s side, fingers clawing for purchase on her saddle as his ribs protest.
For one brief moment, Lo’ak thinks he made it. Häew tilts dangerously, Kiri’s anguished cry mixing with her ikran’s pained shriek. Lo’ak scrambles to cling to the saddle, desperate not to be separated from them. His fingers barely graze the braided latch of the saddle before it slips through his fingers.
He’s free-falling. Again. It doesn’t feel so much like freedom this time. More final.
Lo’ak thinks, just briefly, that he should’ve fallen with Sosul. That he should have stayed with him until the end, as Sosul would have done for him if it was going to end like this anyway.
Lo’ak’s body slams into the warm hide of an ikran. It’s instinct alone, drilled into him by his brother, to cling to the joints where the wings connect to the body, feet bracing against her sides to keep himself from falling.
Sosul, Lo’ak thinks first.
Neteyam, he thinks second, when the sharp edge of grief in his chest reminds him that it couldn’t be his Sosul.
Nor could it be Neteyam he remembers, even if he swears he can feel Neteyam’s hand on his back, warm and safe, making sure he doesn’t slip off.
A shriek, familiar and almost worried, cuts through the air. Not Neteyam, but as close as Lo’ak can get these days. A comforting partner on his flights despite not carrying a rider upon her back.
“Thank you, Eytxa,” he breathes out, slumping against her back.
They’re not safe yet. Mangkwan raiders continue to circle. Kiri, Tuk, and Spider are nowhere to be seen. And Lo’ak has no idea where his parents are, but Eytxa is here. She protected Lo’ak when Neteyam could not. Saved him when Lo’ak couldn’t save himself. Despite his inability to save Sosul or Neteyam.
But Eytxa is warm underneath him and sure in her flight. A piece of home that Lo’ak will savor until they make it back themselves.
-
It’s bright, sunlight peeking out from behind the Hallelujah Mountains when Lo’ak makes his way up to the roosting nests of the ikrans. Nothing like his first or his second attempt to tame an ikran, the rocks slick with rain under his feet. None of the accompanying smell of wet earth and cold air that he associates with the oceans now. With Tsireya and Payakan and peace.
The smell that he first associated with flight, with freedom.
Logically, Lo’ak knows he needs to tame another ikran. They can’t travel back to Awa’atlu with only his parents’ ikrans, and despite following—and carrying—them home, Eytxa won’t let anyone ride her. Not to mention that war is sure to follow them, and Lo’ak can’t fight if he’s grounded.
But logic has never been Lo’ak’s strongest skill. He reacts emotionally—impulsively—on the best of days.
These are not the best of days. Grief is a living, hungry thing under his skin, stripping Lo’ak down to bare bones. Stripping him raw.
So when his father tells him it’s time, Lo’ak tells him no.
Instinctively. Impulsively.
He’s hardly had a chance to mourn. And, if Lo’ak looks a little deeper, if he manages to look past his knee-jerk denial, he finds that the thought of making the trek without Neteyam’s watchful eyes in the corner makes him want to stomp away like a child and never fly again.
But where Lo’ak’s grief makes him impulsive, his father’s makes him cold. Mechanical even. So he reiterates his demand with no room for arguments, and Lo’ak relents, swallowing down grief and guilt and trying not to choke.
And so Lo’ak goes to the Hallelujah Mountains again. He makes the climb numbly, carefully detached as he tries not to think about the last time he made the journey.
He pretends he can’t hear Neteyam’s gentle reminders as he makes his way towards a bigger and older ikran than he should. But something about her seems familiar, so Lo’ak lets himself be led by a tug in his chest, right up to her waiting snarl. He pretends he can’t feel Neteyam’s absence as keenly as a missing limb when he makes tsaheylu with the ikran, her green hide warm beneath his hands.
No one will know if he pretends that his mom’s gentle reminder to fly, to seal the bond, is Neteyam. If he pretends that his mom and Sa’ata following after him are Neteyam and Eytxa as it was before.
And no one will know if he pushes this ikran harder, faster, desperately trying to escape a past he can’t outrun.
Lo’ak banks and finds himself soaked under the same waterfall Neteyam tricked him and Sosul under during his bonding flight. Lo’ak dives, and Neteyam’s whoops fill his ears. Lo’ak twirls over branches and around mountains, the way Neteyam taught him, and for a moment, he feels utterly weightless.
The weight returns, but the memory of weightlessness makes his desire to outrun the past subside. He calls out to his mother, carefully trailing behind him, and circles for a familiar corpse of trees he and Neteyam used to race to.
Lo’ak lands, his mother not far behind him. He slides off her back easily, brushing a hand over her marking reverently.
“She is very beautiful, Lo’ak.” His mother makes a chirping noise low in her throat, gently patting his ikran on her side. His ikran cooes in response, leaning into the affection. “Does she have a name?”
She does. Her name came to mind just as Neteyam said Eytxa’s did, during the bonding flight. Lo’ak knew instantly that it was her name, certain in a way he wasn't the first time he tamed his ikran.
“Eyaya,” he says softly. “Her name is Eyaya.”
Like she knows what it means, Eyaya lets out a happy shriek.
A brief pang of longing erupts in his chest. Longing for Neteyam. To share this moment with him again. As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he feels guilty. His mom is here and his sweet Eyaya. It’s a happy moment, but Lo’ak still wishes for his brother.
Another shriek sounds, different from Eyaya, but familiar all the same. Lo’ak turns towards the direction of the cry, stomach lurching as Eytxa comes into view. His mother laughs, bright and unrestrained, the way Lo’ak has rarely heard since he was a child, as she barrels towards them.
She approaches carefully as though Neteyam himself has commanded her to follow him, despite being riderless. When she lands, shrieking happily, Lo’ak is transported to his first flight with Sosul. When he raced Neteyam and landed first, Neteyam and Eytxa close behind.
Neteyam let him win. That Lo’ak is sure of. The memory is tinged with grief as all thoughts of Neteyam are, but for once, it doesn’t linger. He appreciates it, the way Neteyam appears here, with Lo’ak in whatever way he can.
Eytxa and Eyaya shriek, wings flapping as they lunge towards each other. Lo’ak has the brief, panicked thought he's going to be crushed between the two large bodies. Surprise envelops him when the impact never comes, only deepening as he watches his Eyaya nuzzle under Extya’s chin with a familiarity that surprises him.
Lo’ak blinks. “They–they, um…”
“Are sisters,” his mom cuts in, tears lining her eyes.
She drops her head in reverence, avoiding Extya’s eyes as she steps closer, her question evident. Eytxa eyes her curiously, leaning forward to scent his mother and determine what level of threat she may present. Eytxa huffs along her braids and down her arms, finally sniffing at the choker adorning Neytiri’s throat. Neteyam’s choker. Eytxa makes a quiet chirping noise and settles down, allowing his mother to come close.
Neytiri murmurs to her quietly as she steps close, gently brushing a hand over Eytxa’s side. “Look here, Lo’ak. An ikran’s markings are unique, but each one carries the mark of their sa’nok, linking them as family.”
His mother moves to the side, allowing Lo’ak to see the marking on the underside of Eytxa. He looks back at his Eyaya, who angles her wing up so Lo'ak can see the same markings on her underbelly.
A sister. His ikran and Neteyam’s are sisters. Inexplicably, Lo’ak feels like he may cry.
“It is not often that ikran from same mother will bond within a family,” his mom says gently. “Only very special riders may bond within a family.”
Lo’ak swallows around the lump in his throat. “Why?”
His mother hums. “Ikran are territorial. They do not see family as we do. Most would fight if bonded within family. This is special circumstance. It is a gift from the Great Mother, Lo’ak.”
“A gift?”
“Without your brother,” pain flashes across her face, there and gone in an instant. Lo’ak feels it, the same pain keenly in his chest, “Eytxa is riderless. Riderless ikran are very lonely. Many do not survive the pain of losing their rider.”
“They die?” Lo’ak asks, horrified. Eytxa has been around as long as he can remember. He already lost Neteyam; Lo’ak didn’t know he was at risk of losing one of the remaining pieces of him, too. “Always?”
“Some do,” his mother admits, ears flattening to her head. She continues to gently pat at Eytxa’s side like it soothes something in her. “But some seek out other riderless ikran. If they find kin sometimes they may continue to live, sharing the burden with others who understand.”
Lo’ak blinks harshly, trying to will the tears away. “There are no riderless ikran in Awa’atlu,” he says quietly. “Ours are the only ones close by.”
“Yes.” His mother swallows, a pained grimace on her face. “Eytxa was alone there. Now that she has traveled back, she could choose to remain here. Seek out others who have lost their riders.”
“No,” Lo'ak denies. Instinctive. Impulsive. “She can’t–she can't leave. She belongs with us.”
With Neteyam, he thinks. Though try as she might, searching as far as she may want, Eytxa will not find him. But she’s been there, a steadying force in the gaping hole Neteyam left behind. So constant that Lo’ak can’t stand to lose her too
“She could choose to remain with us,” his mother muses. “She stayed at the reef instead of flying home.”
The lump in his throat grows bigger. He doesn’t want her to die either, alone and sad in Awa’atlu. He can’t stand to lose her at all, not like he lost Neteyam. Not to distance or death.
“Mom,” Lo’ak is horrified to hear the way his voice cracks, thick with tears, “is Eytxa going to…”
Lo’ak trails off, the offending words sticking in his throat. He can't say it. Can’t voice the horrible fear.
“No, Lo’ak,” she reassures him. “I do not think she will.”
“But you said–”
“I know what I said,” she cuts in. “Eytxa may be riderless, but she is not alone. Not anymore.” His mother nods her head at Eyaya, who is still cuddled up against her sister’s side. “Kin,” his mother says, a twinkle in her eye. “The Great Mother has blessed Eytxa with kin to follow her back to the oceans, should she choose to stay with us.”
The dam holding back Lo’ak’s tears breaks as relief sweeps through him fast and unrelenting. His mom makes a quiet noise of displeasure before folding him into her arms.
“Ma’itan,” she murmurs. “Why do you cry?”
“I miss him, Mom,” Lo’ak croaks. “I miss him so much, and losing Eytxa would be like–like,”
She looks at him knowingly. “Like losing him again.”
Lo’al nods, burying his face in his mother’s throat, trying his best to hide from the world. “But if she can stay with us, then…”
“Then you get to hold on to Neteyam. Keep him longer.”
“Do you think it’s selfish?”
Do you think I’m selfish?
“No, Lo’ak,” she denies. “You are not selfish to want your brother. It’s been many years, and I still miss my Sylwanin.”
Tears streak down her face, marking familiar lines on her face. Lo’ak can hardly picture his mother without them. Without grief staining her features.
“One day we will be reunited with them,” she says, voice feather-soft like a prayer. “Until then, we carry pieces of them,” she looks meaningfully at Neteyam’s knife stowed at his side, her fingers drifting up to graze the edges of Neteyam’s choker, “as a reminder of those we loved.”
The tears spill over his lashes. Lo’ak makes a horrible, choking noise and tucks his face back into his mom’s chest, careful not to touch her injured shoulder. She curls a strong arm around him, fingers carding gently through his braids.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you,” she replies, voice thick and watery.
It's quiet, only the sounds of the forest and their quiet breathing as his mother folds him into a bruising hug. Something in Lo'ak settles, more at peace than he's felt in months.
"Maybe, it would be nice to see your brother before we leave for Awa’atlu," she suggests softly. "He’s been worried about Eytxa."
"Ok," Lo’ak agrees. He tightens his arms around his mother, breathing in her comforting scent. "But not yet."
-
“I should get back,” Lo’ak says quietly, choking on his guilt. “We’re leaving for Awa’atlu soon.”
Neteyam’s face falls briefly, quickly smoothing into neutrality. The guilt in Lo’aks’s chest swells. “Sure, but before you go, ma Eytxa,” Neteyam says quietly, pride lining his features. “How is she?”
And Lo’ak meant to tell him. He wanted to tell him, but bringing up Eytxa and the news of her sister, his Eyaya, meant telling his brother of Sosul’s end. How he died protecting Lo’ak just as Neteyam himself.
“Lo’ak?” Neteyam prompts, pride giving way to concern. Fear pinching in around the edges of his face.
“She’s fine,” Lo’ak blurts. “Great, actually. She flew home with us. I think she’ll come back to Awa’atlu.”
Neteyam’s brows pinch together even tighter, concern marring his features. “She’s going back? To Awa’atlu?” Devastation coats the words. “She’ll be alone there.”
“She won’t.” The words come out stilted. Lo’ak can’t quite bring himself to look Neteyam in the eye. “She’ll actually be with her sister.”
“Her sister?”
Lo’ak nods, heart clenching painfully. “My ikran, my Eyaya, is her sister. Mom says she’s a gift from Eywa to give Eytxa more family since she refuses to leave us.”
Neteyam’s mouth opens and closes a few times; the silence that stretches on becomes deafening. Lo’ak can practically see the gears turning in Neteyam’s head, sorting through the information and deciding where he wants to start.
Like he never left, like Neteyam, can see right through Lo’ak’s relaxed facade, he asks, achingly gentle despite wanting to know more of his Eytxa, “What happened to Sosul?”
Neteyam’s words cut deep, right to the ache in his chest that has yet to go away. “We were attacked by Mangkwan raiders on our trip home.” Lo’ak’s eyes burn. He shrugs. “Sosul protected me. I could not return the favor.”
Because at the end of the day, no matter the details, that’s what happened. Neteyam protected Lo’ak. Sosul protected Lo’ak. And Lo’ak could not protect them back. They died for him—because of him.
“Eytxa saved me too,” Lo’ak adds, almost an afterthought. It does the job of unknotting the crease between Neteyam’s brows. “She brought me home. She brought me to her sister.”
“My sweet girl,” Neteyam murmurs. “I’m glad she’s looking out for you.”
“I’m trying to look out for her too,” Lo’ak admits earnestly, hoping Neteyam knows it’s true. Hoping he can keep her safe the way he couldn’t for Neteyam.
“I know you are, bro.” Neteyam shoves him gently. “Thank you.”
Something pleased and tinged with embarrassment curls up in Lo’ak’s chest. “Of course.”
Silence falls between them, content and warm. Lo’ak knows he needs to go; they leave for Awa’atlu soon, as he told Neteyam, but Lo’ak wants to sit with his brother a little longer before he has to leave again.
“Eyaya,” Neteyam says softly, breaking the comfortable silence. “I like it.”
“I like her,” Lo’ak admits. Pain grips his chest. “I miss my Sosul. She’s so different from him, but she fits like she’s always been here.” Lo’ak nudges Neteyam with an elbow. “Eytxa likes her too.”
“Good.” Neteyam grins. “We’ll see how long that lasts. I know a thing or two about pain in the ass siblings.”
“Hey,” Lo’ak argues, but Neteyam just laughs, the bright sound soothing some of the aches in his chest.
Lo’ak basks in the familiar sound, in the comfort it brings him still. He stays as long as he can, though not as long as he wants. Until he can vaguely sense Kiri waiting for him, her impatience prickling over his skin.
“I’ve got to go, bro,” Lo’ak says, regret pooling in his chest.
“Take care of yourself, Lo’ak.” Neteyam's mouth pulls into something that resembles a smile. “Be careful. And visit soon.”
“I will,” Lo’ak promises, tugging Neteyam into a hug before he goes. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Neteyam’s smile is the last thing he sees, slowly fading away as Lo’ak disconnects from the Spirit Tree. When he returns, his dad reprimands him for taking too long, and Lo’ak wilts before his mother snaps something under her breath that makes his dad pale.
She brushes a hand over Lo’ak’s head with a gentle smile. Lo’ak returns it, quietly making his way over to Eyaya to ensure all his luggage is secured.
He feels a brief pang of guilt for bonding with her only to take her away from the only home she’s ever known. Eyaya doesn’t seem to mind, cuddling up next to Eytxa, even as Lo’ak is trying to finish buckling her saddle.
His family only lingers for a moment longer. They were only waiting for him to return, and now that Lo’ak has, they have no reason to stay here.
It’s almost harder to leave the forest a second time. To make the trip to foreign shores without Neteyam, even if Lo’ak now considers Awa’atlu as much a home as the forest.
Making the flight without him is hard. Lo’ak keeps turning his head and expecting to see Neteyam at his side. It’s something he suspects he’ll be doing for a very long time.
Lo’ak takes up the rear, Eytxa soaring next to him and Eyaya, and hoping it will feel like Neteyam is there. If Lo’ak doesn’t look too closely, he can almost envision Neteyam atop her back.
Eytxa shrikes happily, banking to brush her wing along Eyaya’s. Lo’ak can't help the bubble of laughter that rips free. Neteyam is here. In the wind, the teasing nature of their ikran, in Lo’ak’s heart. In every way he can be, Neteyam is here.
Eyaya banks sharply chasing after her sister, and for a moment, Lo’ak feels Sosul there too. Sosul’s wings under his hands and transporting him safely wherever he needed to go.
Neteyam and Sosul. Two pieces that Lo’ak will carry with him forever. He tucks them away in his heart. Grief swells and ebbs, like a wave broken against the reef. Lo’ak lets it roll over him, inevitable as the eclipse.
And like the eclipse, it eventually fades. Life doesn’t wait for it to fade. Some days when they are in the thick of battle, the grief will flare hot in his chest, undeniable. Some days, the only thing threatening his peace is the pain and guilt until it eventually fades.
The grief will be back. The pain and guilt along with it. Lo’ak knows, like the eclipse, his grief will resurface. Life will not wait for it to fade because it never will. Not completely.
For once, Lo’ak finds that he’s okay with it. The grief is a reminder of those he loved. Lo’ak could never hate that.