Archive of Our Own ^beta

The blade is heavier than Neteyam remembers.

Or maybe his hands are just weaker now, barely holding on. Truthfully, he can't really tell anymore. Can't tell much of anything surrounding him except the weight of the knife against his palm, the familiar worn grip, and the way Naranawm's light catches on the edge.

The blade is so heavy. His hands are so weak. And he's so, so tired of holding on.

Salt coats his lips. The wind cuts across the beach, sharp and cold despite the tropical warmth of Awa'atlu. It should feel wrong, because this place is supposed to be paradise, a perfect place for uturu. The Metkayina call this place a gift from Eywa. Tsireya herself speaks of it with reverence: the sacred Cove of the Ancestors, the Spirit Tree, and the way of water as the sea gives and takes. She means well. They all do. But they don't understand.

Lo'ak died here.

So it's not paradise. It's a grave.

Neteyam sits on the soft sand, feet in the surf. The water laps at his ankles, rhythmic and indifferent. The same water that took his brother that turned red with blood—whose blood? Both of theirs, mixed together, indistinguishable.

He knows how to kill.

Neteyam couldn't let go.

His arms were locked around Lo'ak's body, cradling him the way he used to when they were children and had nightmares. Back when holding his little brother close was enough to chase away the darkness, knowing he could fix things just by being there. His presence used to mean safety. "I've got you, baby brother. Nothing's going to hurt you while I'm here." Lo'ak used to crawl into his hammock during storms, small and shaking, and he'd wrap around him like a shield. And he'd eventually be still, his breathing evening out, trusting absolutely in his big brother's ability. He'd believed that once. They both had.

When did that stop being true?

When did Neteyam's arms become just arms, flesh and bone and nothing more? Not a shield, but just empty promises wrapped around a body that couldn't feel them anymore.

He couldn't fix this.

The realization sat in his chest like a stone. He couldn't wake him up, not even breathe life back into the lungs that had gone still. All his strength, training, and desperate love—none of it mattered anymore. Maybe because it wasn't enough. The wrongness of it made his skin crawl. His little brother used to be feverishly warm. Even in the cool nights of the forest, he radiated heat like a small star. He'd sprawl in the shade after training, limbs loose and lazy.

He used to tease him about it. "You run hot because you never stop moving. Even when you're sleeping." And it was true. His brother was perpetual motion, restless energy, always fidgeting or bouncing or doing something. Stillness didn't suit him.

Not anymore.

Lo'ak was cold.

The warmth that used to radiate from him, the constant motion, the restless energy, and that innate happiness that made him impossible to ignore were gone. Snuffed out like a flame in water, a flower left too long without care. He was already returning to the sea, to Eywa. His thumb traced his brother's cheekbone as a gesture of comfort, of reassurance, even though there's no one left to comfort. And what was left was this cold, heavy thing in Neteyam's arms. A body. Not his brother.

This wasn't Lo'ak.

His hair was matted with blood, his own and Neteyam's, mixed together the way their lives had always been: inseparable. He couldn't bear it to see that evidence of violence marking his little brother. So he washed it. Carefully, gently, the way his mother used to wash their hair when they were small. Working through each braid with shaking fingers, untangling knots, while he just lay there in the water, head resting against his knee, patient as he never was in life.

Sit still, skxawng. I'm almost done.

I can't, it's boring. You take forever.

If you'd let me do this more often, it wouldn't take so long.

The memory surfaces unbidden. They were twelve-eleven, and Lo'ak was squirming while Neteyam tried to fix his hair before some ceremony or another, both of them laughing when he finally escaped, braids half-done and flying wild. He had been annoyed then. But now, he'd give anything to be annoyed. To have his baby brother squirming away from him, alive and laughing and here.

All he knew was that letting go meant accepting this.

But just a little longer. Just let him hold on a little longer.

"Neteyam." His father's voice was rough with grief. "Boy."

He didn't respond. If he acknowledged them, if he let the world back in, then this would become real. Then his brother was really—

"Ma'itan." His mother came closer. Her hand on his shoulder, gentle. "We must… we must return him to the Great Mother."

No.

The word didn't leave his mouth, but his body screamed it. His arms tightened, pulling Lo'ak's forehead onto his own. Had he always been this light? Or is it the absence of himself, like he might drift away if he loosened his grip? But he continuously felt the increasing stiffness of his brother's limbs, the way his body was becoming less pliable and less of him.

Just a thing.

"Brother." Kiri's voice, thick with tears. She was kneeling beside him, he realized distantly. "Brother, you have to."

"I can't." The words scraped out of him. "I can't let him go. If I let go, he's—"

Gone. Dead. Really, truly, permanently gone.

As long as he was holding him in his arms, he could pretend. He imagined that any second his little brother would take a breath, cough, and open his eyes and grin that stupid, reckless grin and say something like, "Got you worried there, huh?" It happened before. Not like this, but close enough that the hope felt almost reasonable. Lo'ak had always been good at scaring him. That time he fell from the ikran rookery, and Neteyam's heart stopped until he groaned and sat up, dazed but laughing.

His baby brother had always come back. Stubborn. Too reckless to die properly because death would require him to sit still, and he never sat still in his life.

He knew those eyes will flutter open and he'd see his face and realize how scared everyone was and feel bad about it but also kind of proud because he really got them good this time.

Please, he thinks desperately. Please, baby brother, just breathe. Just once. Just show me you're still in there.

"Neteyam." The voice came from far away, muffled, like he's underwater.

Jake's hands were on him, firm but not forcing. Big hands, calloused and scarred that had held him since he was born, that taught him to hold a bow. But the hands became ones that were trying to take him from his brother. His voice cracked—it usually never broke, steady even when they fled their home and everything fell apart. "Neteyam." Closer, a hand on his shoulder. "I know, boy. But we have to—"

No we don't, he wants to say. We don't have to do anything. We can just stay here, just wait.

"We have to let him rest."

The word detonated in his chest.

"He was supposed to rest alive."

The words came violently, ripping through the numbness. Lo'ak was supposed to rest after training, sprawled in the shade complaining about how hard Dad pushed them. He was supposed to rest after long hunts, after ocean rides with Payakan, after sneaking off with Tsireya and coming back with that soft, stupid smile on his face. He was supposed to rest tired, not dead.

Jake eventually gave up, not because he couldn't push him more. In fact, he could just pull him away from the body. But why would he? Not when this was the very last time.

"Ma'itan."

His mother's voice, and it was worse than his father's because Neytiri didn't hide her grief. She was crying—had been crying—open and unashamed, the way she'd been crying since they brought Lo'ak's body back from the rocks. Since she saw her son laid out still and silent.

"Ma'itan, please."

Please what? he wanted to ask. Please let go of your brother? Please accept that he's dead? Please pretend everything is fine?

"Please." Her voice broke on the word. "I cannot bear this."

Neytiri knelt in front of him. He could see her through his blurred vision, face ravaged by tears, eyes red and swollen, but still present. She held herself together even as she feel apart. Still stronger than him. Because his mother had borne so much. The destruction of Hometree, the death of her father, leaving the forest, leaving everything.

And this. She had to watch one son refuse to release another, seeing both her boys broken in different ways, somehow found the strength to bury her child while her other won't let go.

"Let us send him home."

"I can't," he managed, voice cracked and small. "Mother, I can't. If I let go—"

And maybe Neteyam is selfish for wanting to hold on.

"Neteyam." Her hands slid down from his face to his arms, to where they were locked around Lo'ak's body. "Let me help you." She didn't pull, not even force. She just held his hands. Her fingers wrapped around his, all warm and trembling, and she waited. Offering him her strength because his had run out.

"We let go together," she whispered.

And somehow, that made it possible. Not easier, but possible. Neteyam's fingers began to loosen. His mother's hands guided his, gentle but insistent. One finger. Then another. His right arm released first, muscles screaming in protest after being locked for so long. She catched his hand, holding it tight. "Good," she murmured. "Good, my brave son. Now the other."

I'm not brave. Brave would have been saving him. But he let go anyway. His left arm unfolded from around his brother's shoulders.

His arms dropped to his sides, empty. He stared at them, these useless limbs, and didn't understand what they're for anymore. She pulled him against her, boneless and shaking. She held him the way he was holding his baby brother, all tight and desperate, like she could keep him from falling apart through sheer force of will.

They moved as a family. Into the water together. Jake supported Lo'ak's shoulders, Neytiri his legs. Kiri kept one hand under his back, helping support his weight. Neteyam did the same on the other side, trying not to think about how many times they'd swum together like this—the three of them, racing through the water, his brother always in the middle because he was the strongest swimmer, the one who took to the ocean like he was born to it. Tuk paddled beside them instead, breathing hard, face streaked with tears and salt water.

The Metkayina had gathered on the shore, forming a silent wall of respect and witness. Tonowari and Ronal stood waist-deep in the shallows, watching but not interfering. Aonung, Tsireya, and Rotxo beside them, tears down their faces.

They swam out farther. Deeper.

The seabed dropped away beneath them, and the water changed. The syuratan began to wake around them—faint at first, then stronger. Blue-green tendrils of light spiraling up from below. They then reached the point where the golden anemone garden began. The massive tendrils swayed gently in the current, glowing soft and warm in the dark water. Beautiful.

Neteyam wanted to destroy them all.

Jake and Neytiri took one last moment. One last look. Then they filled their lungs with air and dove. His parents were dark shapes against the growing light, Lo'ak's body held carefully between them. Together, they carried their son down. The anemone tendrils reached for them as they passed. Golden and glowing, swaying in the current like they were beckoning, they were welcoming.

This was where he would stay. Forever.

And for one impossible moment, he saw him.

His baby brother's face, visible through the golden light. Eyes open, looking up through the water, the distance, everything that separated them. Looking directly at him.

His expression was—what? Confused? Scared? He couldn't tell from this far, through the distortion of water and light. But those eyes were practically seeing. His mouth even moved, forming words he couldn't hear but somehow knew anyway:

Don't leave me here.

Time moved strangely after the funeral.

Neteyam noticed it first in the way mornings arrived suddenly, without warning. He'd be sitting on the beach in darkness, and then the sky would be light, and he had no memory of watching it change. Days blurred together. Or maybe it was weeks. He stopped tracking the phases of the moons, stopped counting eclipses. What was the point? Each day was identical to the last: wake, train, eat, smile, sleep. Just an endless cycle that repeated meaninglessly.

The clan had expectations. He could feel them like weight on his shoulders, see them in the careful way people looked at him. Sympathetic but impatient. Concerned but waiting. He'll bounce back, he's strong, their expressions said. They expected resilience and him grieve appropriately: visibly enough to be respectful, briefly enough to be admirable. Then move on. Return to normal. Just the same as it was. He was the eldest son, a warrior, after all. The one who never broke, never faltered, and the one everyone could count on.

Except he failed. Not in some small, forgivable way. It was, as a matter of fact, a catastrophic manner, so to say. His brother was dead because of it.

And everyone was just… kind of pretending he didn't. Pretending that grief alone explained the hollow look in his eyes, the mechanical way he moved through his days without question. Figuring out that time and support and patience would fix what was broken inside him. This was normal because it could heal, grief could heal.

But Neteyam knew better. Some things, once broken, didn't heal. Some failures were too complete, too devastating, to ever recover from. He just had to make sure no one else knew that yet. He had to keep functioning. Keep being the son, the brother, the warrior they needed him to be, just to know that the Sullys could conquer any storm.

So he would be.

Until he couldn't anymore.

"Neteyam." Tonowari's voice, patient but firm. "Are you listening?"

He blinked, pulled back to the present. They were on the beach—training, he remembered distantly. Spear work. The other young warriors stood in formation around them, watching their chief demonstrate a technique. Well, something he had completely missed by then.

"Yes, sir," he said automatically. His voice sounded steady. "I'm listening."

The Olo'eyktan's eyes were kind but concerned. "Perhaps you should rest today. You have been through—"

"I'm fine. Please continue." The lie came easily now. Smooth and practiced.

The man hesitated, then nodded. Resumed the lesson.

After training came the work. The village always needed something. Nets to mend, fish to clean, boats to repair. Neteyam volunteered for everything, filled every hour with tasks that required hands but not heart.

"Neteyam, could you help with this?" became a common refrain.

And he always said yes.

Yes to Tsireya, who needed help carrying supplies to the healer's Marui. If Lo'ak was still here, she'd definitely ask him instead. They walked in silence mostly, because his friend had learned that he didn't want to talk, but appreciated the company anyway. Or maybe she just felt guilty still because she couldn't do anything while seeing his brother dying in front of her eyes, even though it wasn't her fault. She still cared anyway, like how any other of his friends would.

Evenings were structured around Tuk.

She needed him: someone to be stable, present, there when their parents were fragments of themselves. So Neteyam made sure he was. He'd find her after the day's activities, usually with Kiri or playing with the other children. She'd light up when she saw him, running over with something to show him. A shell, a piece of coral, a fish she'd helped catch. Even sometimes a pearl if she's lucky enough.

"Look, Neteyam! Isn't it pretty?"

And he'd crouch down to her level, take the offering in his hands, examine it with careful attention. "It's beautiful, Tuk. Very pretty. Where did you find it?"

She'd chatter about her day—where she'd been, what she'd seen, who she'd played with. Simple, innocent things. The kinds of things she used to tell Lo'ak, who'd listen with exaggerated interest and tease her and make her laugh until she couldn't breathe. He couldn't replicate that. Not his easy warmth, his natural way of making everything fun. But he could listen, nod, smile, and ask follow-up questions that made Tuk feel heard, feel valued.

Could be enough, even if he couldn't be what she really needed.

They sat together on the beach, Tuk's small hands working on making a necklace alongside his larger ones, threading shells onto cord. She hummed while she worked. Well, not the exuberant, off-key singing she used to do, but quieter. She'd changed too, noticeable even. Grown more careful, more aware of the fragility of things, of people.

"Neteyam?" Her voice was small. "Are you sad?"

The question caught him off-guard. He looked at her and saw her watching him with those too-perceptive eyes. Young, but not fooled by his performance.

"I miss Lo'ak," he said carefully. Truthfully, even. "We all do."

"But are you sad?"

"Yes, I'm sad," he replied.

She nodded slowly, processing this. Then, with the straightforward wisdom of children: "It's okay to be sad. Kiri says it's okay to cry."

"She's right."

"But you don't cry."

Not where anyone could see, of course.

"Everyone grieves differently, tsmuke. Some people cry a lot. Some people cry less. It doesn't mean they hurt less."

She seemed to accept this, though her eyes remained troubled. She leaned against his side, head resting on his arm, and they finished the necklace in silence. When it was done, she held it up, examining it critically.

"Do you think Lo'ak would have liked it?"

His chest constricted. "I think he would have loved it."

When she pulled away and ran off to show Kiri her shells, his smile dropped immediately. Like a mask removed. His face felt heavy without it.

Meals were theater.

The family gathered each evening around the fire—six of them now with Spider, although he couldn't replace he crater Lo'ak left—and went through the motions of togetherness.

His mother prepared food, movements that had once been fluid and natural now stiff and deliberate. She'd always hummed while cooking. She didn't anymore. The silence was worse than any crying. And even if she did, it would probably be Lo'ak's songcord. His father helped, though his hands were clumsy with tasks that weren't combat. He tried, though. Tried to fill space, the silence, and the absence that hung over all of them like smoke.

Kiri set out leaves for eating, arranged things just so. She'd always been particular about presentation, finding beauty in small details. Now it seemed more like ritual—something to focus on so she didn't have to focus on the empty space beside her brother. Tuk stayed close to whoever would let her, rarely leaving their orbit. She'd been the most independent of them once, saying she's a big girl already. Now she was stuck tight to family like letting go meant losing them.

And Neteyam sat and tried to eat. Like there wasn't a gap where Lo'ak should be sitting.

His mother noticed. Of course she did.

"Ma'itan," she'd say gently, carefully. "You've barely touched your food."

"I'm just not very hungry." The lie came easily. He'd smile to soften it. "I ate a lot at midday."

Another lie. He'd picked at lunch the same way he picked at dinner. But she was too deep in her own grief to push, too exhausted to fight him. So she'd nod. Look away. Let it go for now.

Kiri didn't let it go as easily. She'd catch his eye across the fire, meaningful looks that said I see you and I'm worried and please don't do this to yourself. But she didn't call him out in front of their parents. Didn't add to their burden.

His father tried his own way. There were moments, just brief and awkward, where he would approach him with something like intention. They'd hunt in near silence. He pointed out tracks, asked brief questions about technique, commented on the weather. Surface-level exchanges that never scratched deeper, never acknowledged the chasm between them. As if not speaking about Lo'ak meant the pain wasn't there. Simply pretending everything was fine could make it true.

But mostly, Jake was absent.

Not physically—he was there, a presence in the Marui pod, at meals, during training. But the man inside seemed to have retreated, hollowed out by guilt and grief until only the shell remained. The war chief who'd made the impossible decision to leave their home, their clan, everything they knew, to keep them safe. Yet the war had found them anyway. Had taken Lo'ak anyway. So all of it didn't matter.

When Jake wasn't absent, though, he was demanding.

"Again," he'd say during their private training sessionse. "You're telegraphing. Can see that coming from a mile away. Again."

"Your footwork is sloppy. Again."

"You're hesitating. What happens if this is a real fight and you hesitate like that? Again."

"Better, we'll work on it more tomorrow."

He'd reset his stance. Execute the movement.

"I know, sir," Neteyam said quietly. "I'll do better."

Only Kiri seemed to really see him.

She had a way of appearing exactly when Neteyam thought he was alone—when he'd found some quiet corner of the village or an isolated stretch of the beach where he could let his face fall into its natural lines of exhaustion and grief without worrying who might see. And then there she'd be, not even announcing herself or asking permission. Just settling beside him, her presence both surprising and somehow expected. She'd appear while he sat on the rocks watching the ocean, knees drawn up to his chest.

And she never demanded anything. Never pushed for conversation or forced cheerfulness or tried to fill the silence with empty comfort. Never asked the questions everyone else couldn't help asking: Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? Is there anything I can do? She just existed beside him. Shared his space, his air, his grief. Sometimes she'd lean her head against his shoulder, proof that at least one person in his family was real in a world that felt increasingly dreamlike and distant.

And Neteyam would zone out completely.

His eyes would fix on the horizon: that endless line where water met sky, where Lo'ak had disappeared beneath the surface, where the golden glow of the Spirit Tree pulsed with stolen light. He'd stare until the colors blurred together, until he couldn't tell where ocean ended and sky began, until everything was just blue and empty.

"I'm here," she'd whisper sometimes. Not often—the words were too heavy for frequent use. But occasionally, when the silence stretched especially long or when his breathing hitched in a way that suggested he might actually break. "Whenever you're ready, brother. I'm here."

The promise settled over him like a blanket over his body. Comforting and suffocating at once.

Whenever you're ready.

But he was never ready.

How could he explain to his sister what was happening inside him? The way food tasted like ash and sleep brought nightmares worse than waking. The way he could feel himself fragmenting, pieces of who he used to be flaking away. The way part of him wanted to sink beneath the water like Lo'ak had and finally rest. But of course, he couldn't say any of that. He won't ever burden her with the weight of his breaking. So he stayed quiet.

"Brother, your body is here. But you… the you that I know," her voice cracked. "You're disappearing. Little by little. And I don't know how to help you, how to… bring you back."

"I'm—" The words stuck in his throat. "I'm trying." It was the closest to truth he'd managed in weeks.

Her face crumpled. She reached for him, pulled him into a hug that was more like a grip. Like she was physically trying to hold him together, keep him from scattering into the wind. And he let her think he was still trying when he was really just counting down the days until he couldn't anymore.

And something started small.

So small that he could convince himself it was nothing. Tricks of light, exhaustion playing games with perception. A flicker of movement in his vision while he worked: there, then gone when he turned his head. The sense of someone standing just behind him, close enough to feel but never there when he looked. A shadow that moved wrong, shaped like a person he knew, dissolving into nothing when he tried to focus on it.

Just stress.

Just grief.

But then it became harder to dismiss.

Three weeks after the funeral—or maybe four, time was still strange—Neteyam sat down for dinner with his family.

The usual ritual. The fire crackling, the smell of roasted fish and fruit, the careful arrangement of leaves. His mother serving food, his father's heavy presence, Tuk trying to fill silence with chatter, Kiri's quiet observation, and Spider trying to fit in. And the empty space beside him. That gaping absence that grew larger every day despite taking up no physical room.

He settled into his spot, accepting the leaf his mother passed him, and looked up.

Lo'ak was sitting across the fire.

His breath stopped.

His little brother sat in his usual position with legs crossed, posture relaxed in that particular way he always held himself. He was exactly as he'd been in life. The same lean build, the same braids falling over his shoulders, the same slight smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. He reached for a fruit, brought it to his mouth, bit into it, chewed. The way his ears twitched when Tuk's voice got particularly high-pitched. The slight furrow between his brows when he concentrated. Right there.

Alive and whole and real.

Neteyam stared, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to do anything but look.

"Neteyam?"

His mother's voice, distant and concerned, barely penetrated the roaring in his ears.

"Are you alright, ma'itan?"

He couldn't answer. Couldn't tear his eyes away from his brother, who was now looking directly at him. Meeting his gaze across the fire with an expression that was so normal, slightly confused, a raised eyebrow, that look like nothing had happened, as if he'd never died. It made him believe for a minute or maybe two that the last few weeks were just a bad dream and reality was this, sitting together as a family, everyone alive and present and—

"Neteyam." His father's voice, sharper now. "What's wrong?"

He blinked, and when his eyes opened again, Lo'ak was gone.

Just empty space where he'd been sitting. His family was staring at him. All of them. Tuk with wide, worried eyes. Kiri with that too-knowing expression. His mother half-risen from her seat, hand extended like she'd been about to reach for him. His father tense, alert, ready to respond to some threat he couldn't see. Spider right behind him, breathing hardly with concern through his exopack.

"I—" His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I'm fine. Just... thought I saw something."

"Saw what?" Jake's eyes were already scanning the area, looking for danger.

"Nothing. Just a shadow. It's nothing."

The lie settled over the group with uncomfortable weight. No one quite believed him, but no one knew how to push either. But his hands were shaking. And when he looked at the empty space across the fire, he could still see the imprint of his baby brother sitting there. It was easy to remember the exact position of his legs, the angle of his head, the way the firelight had caught in his eyes.

He's dead. This is just—

Just what?

After that, it happened more frequently.

The next morning, walking through the village to training, Neteyam saw him again. Lo'ak's back, distinctive even at a distance. The set of his shoulders, that particular gait that was somehow both lazy and purposeful, like he had somewhere to be but wasn't in any hurry to get there. Moving through the early morning crowd like someone who belonged. His heart leapt into his throat.

"Lo'ak!" The name escaped before he could stop it, loud enough to make several nearby people turn and look.

The figure ahead paused. Started to turn. So he followed and broke into a run, pushing past people, desperate to reach him before he disappeared, before this chance—an impossible, miraculous chance—evaporated like all the others. He reached the spot where his brother had been standing.

Empty. No one there.

Just the normal morning activity of the village, where people were preparing for the day's work, children running past, elders gathering for their morning meal. His brother was nowhere, not one person who resembled him. He stopped. Several Na'vi were watching him with expressions that ranged from confused to pitying. An elderly woman stepped closer, hand extended in comfort or concern, or possibly both.

"Where did he go? Did anyone see—"

"Are you well, child?" Her voice was gentle. Careful, the tone you'd use with someone fragile. "You called for your brother."

Neteyam's throat closed. "I thought I saw him. I thought…" He couldn't finish. The words sounded insane even to his own ears.

"Grief plays tricks on the mind, young one. The Great Mother shows us what we need to see, sometimes. To help us heal."

To help us heal.

But this didn't feel like healing. This felt like torture. Like his mind was dangling his greatest wish in front of him over and over, letting him believe for just a moment, then ripping it away. "Yes," he managed.

"You're right. I'm sorry. I should—I should go."

He fled before anyone could say more, their pitying looks burning into his back. They didn't say it out loud, but he could feel them thinking about it, whether they simply looked at him or not. Poor boy. The grief has broken him.

Maybe it had.

By the fourth week, or so he thought, the hallucinations were daily occurrences.

Lo'ak sitting on the beach, staring out at the ocean. When Neteyam approached, he'd vanish before he could get close enough to touch. Lo'ak swimming in the shallows, diving and surfacing with that joyful smile he'd developed since coming to Awa'atlu. But when he waded in after him, the water was empty. Lo'ak standing at the entrance to the family Marui at dusk, silhouetted against the dying light. Looking in at them like he wanted to join but couldn't quite cross the threshold. Gone the moment he moved toward him.

Always just out of reach. Always disappearing when he tried to get closer.

The worst part? He started to want them.

Started looking for his baby brother in crowds, scanning the beach at dawn, checking his usual spots with desperate hope. Started feeling disappointed when a day passed without seeing him, like he was choosing to stay away, choosing not to visit. And he knew it was wrong. He was seeing things that weren't there, that his grief-addled mind was conjuring images to comfort itself. Healthy people didn't hallucinate their dead brothers with increasing frequency and clarity, let alone hoping for it.

But part of him, a growing and desperate part, didn't want it to stop. Because even a hallucination of his brother was better than the endless, empty absence. At least this way, he got glimpses. Maybe a form of mercy from Eywa in the vast desert of guilt that he held. Even if they were driving him slowly insane.

One afternoon, he was working on nets with a group of fishermen. His hands moving automatically through the familiar motions, mind elsewhere as usual, when he heard it.

"You're doing that wrong."

Lo'ak voice. Clear and close, like he was standing right beside him. Neteyam's hands froze. His head whipped around. No one there. Just the other fishermen, working and chatting among themselves, paying him no attention.

"The knot. You're going to tie it too loose. It'll come apart the first time someone actually uses that net."

He looked down at his hands. At the knot he'd been tying without thinking. He was right: he'd been doing it wrong—not his usual technique, not the way that would hold. He undid the knot, retied it correctly. His hands shook badly enough that it took three attempts. At the final tie, he realized his hands were starting to look a a bit red and grazed.

His vision blurred. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear it, trying to focus on the net in front of him. Just grief, he told himself frantically. Feeling that it's just his mind playing tricks, because his brother isn't here. He's not here.

"I'm really here, y'know," the voice insisted, gentle but insistent.

He made a sound, half sob and half gasp, and dropped the net entirely. "I need some air," he stammered to the confused fishermen, backing away.

"Sorry, I'll—I'll finish this later."

He fled to the beach. Found an isolated stretch where no one could see him, where no one would witness him falling apart. Collapsed onto the sand with his head in his hands and tried to breathe through the panic. He calmed himself, and talked through his thoughts.

"You're dead. You're dead and I'm losing my mind and you're not real." Neteyam whispered aloud, voice cracking like dried leaves. His breath came too fast, shallow and panicked. His hands pressed against the sand, fingers digging in, trying to ground himself in something solid, something genuine. The grains were warm from the sun, rough against his palms. Undeniable, unlike the voice in his head that sounded too real to be imaginary.

"Maybe not," Lo'ak said, and the voice was closer now, right beside his ear like his brother had leaned in to share a secret. "But I'm here anyway. Still with you. Doesn't that count for something?"

"No. It doesn't count because you're not here. You're in the Spirit Tree, you're—"

"Dead. Just say it, bro. I'm dead."

This was wrong. Dead people didn't talk. Didn't make jokes about their own deaths, let alone sit on beaches having conversations with their grieving brothers. And somehow, impossibly, he felt it. A presence settling beside him on his left side, the side his brother always chose when they sat together, close enough that their shoulders would bump, close enough to steal food from each other's leaves or share whispered jokes during ceremonies.

A warmth that shouldn't exist in empty air.

His breath stuttered, head turned slowly. Because he had to know. Had to confirm that he'd irretrievably lost his mind.

And there—

Oh, Eywa.

Lo'ak sat beside him.

Close enough to touch if he reached out. Close enough that he could count the beads woven into his braids, the individual strands of hair that always escaped no matter how carefully they were tied back. Warm amber eyes that caught the sky's light. That familiar smile playing at the corners of his mouth: not quite smirking, not quite genuine either, somewhere in between where he'd always lived. Utterly present.

"Miss me?"

The question was gentle. Teasing, but with an undercurrent of real concern, real affection. The tone he used when he was trying to lighten a heavy moment, to make Neteyam smile when he'd been too serious for too long. He couldn't speak. His throat had closed completely, air trapped somewhere between his lungs and his mouth. Could only stare with eyes that burned and blurred and saw too much and not enough all at once. His brother was here. Sitting beside him.

His brother had been dead for weeks. He's buried in the Cove of the Ancestors where he had watched him sink into the golden light.

"It's okay, I know," his brother said quietly, or so he thought he was, and there was so much kindness in his voice it made him want to scream.

Know what? he wanted to ask. Know that I'm falling apart? Know that I can't do this anymore? Know that I failed you and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—

But the words wouldn't come. Just wouldn't form. His mouth opened but nothing emerged except a sound that was barely human, but entirely broken.

This isn't real, his mind chanted desperately. This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't—

But Eywa help him, he wanted it to be. Wanted so badly for this to be real, for his brother to actually be here. Not dead, not gone, just here beside him where he belonged. The distinction between hallucination and reality was starting to blur like blood bleeding together. Until he couldn't tell where grief ended and delusion began, where memory became manifestation, where wanting transformed into seeing. His hands were shaking, pressed them flat against the sand again, trying to anchor himself and stay tethered.

"I'm going crazy," he whispered, and the admission felt like defeat, as if the moment you stop fighting the current and let it pull you under.

"Maybe," the hallucination said, shrugging with one shoulder. "Or maybe grief just… I don't know, opens doors? Makes us see things we're not supposed to see."

"You're not crazy, bro. Or if you are, then I guess I am too, because I'm having this conversation with you." He paused, seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "You're grieving. And your mind is trying to... cope? Process? By keeping me around."

"By hallucinating," Neteyam said flatly.

"By remembering," Lo'ak corrected.

"You're dead," he promptly answered, and the word felt like swallowing glass. "You're dead and I watched you die and I couldn't—" His voice broke completely. The tears he'd been holding back spilled over, warm tracks down his face that he couldn't stop itself. "I couldn't save you," he finished in a whisper.

And that was when he realized how far gone he was. Because a desperate part of him was willing to accept that logic that somehow, impossibly, through some mechanism he didn't understand and didn't need to understand, his baby brother could be both dead and present. The alternative was accepting what he'd been avoiding for weeks: that he was dreaming with increasing clarity and frequency, while all the sleeplessness had eroded his grasp on reality until his mind had started manufacturing what it needed to survive.

That he was breaking down completely. Fragmenting. That he was losing himself in the same water that had taken his brother.

So he chose to believe.

Just like how any Na'vi would believe in Eywa.

Not so different.

"Okay," he whispered finally, the word carrying the weight of acceptance, or rather, simply surrendering in giving up on sanity in favor of comfort, however false. "Alright."

"I'm here," his brother confirmed, and he reached out like he might touch his shoulder, but his hand stopped just short. Hovering in the space between them, probably unable to make contact. "I'm not going anywhere. Not as long as you need me."

Because Neteyam would always need him. He'd always need this: the comfort of his brother's presence, the illusion that he wasn't completely alone in his grief, the fantasy that Lo'ak wasn't really gone. He needed it so badly that he'd be willing to trade sanity for it, and he basically just did. He knew that, somewhere deep down, he was making a terrible choice. Accepting hallucinations as reality was the beginning of an end he might not be able to come back from. But he did it anyway.

Even though this was the moment he'd look back on later, if there was a later, and recognize as the point of no return.

For now, it was enough.

It had to be.

After that first conversation on the beach, Lo'ak didn't leave.

Not really. Not ever.

He became a constant presence in Neteyam's life: appearing and disappearing with increasing frequency, sometimes silent and observational, sometimes talkative and engaged. Sometimes comforting. Sometimes cruel.

It depended on his own state of mind, he realized eventually. When he was calm, Lo'ak was the brother he remembered. Easy smiles, gentle teasing, the kind of companionship that made the endless days bearable. But when his guilt spiraled, when the weight of failure pressed down too hard, he changed as well. Became sharper, colder, or saying things that cut deep and true.

"You're doing that wrong," his brother would say while he worked on nets, leaning over his shoulder to watch. And he'd adjust, following the guidance, and the net would lie flat and perfect.

"Thanks," he murmured under his breath.

The fishermen nearby would glance at him oddly—talking to himself again—but Neteyam had stopped caring what they thought. They wouldn't pry into making him answer their curiosity anyway, so why matter in the first place.

Another time during dinner, his brother would sit on his usual spot. His expression was unreadable. "Great, you're smiling like everything's fine when you're dying inside. They can't even tell."

His hand tightened on his leaf, but he kept his face neutral for his family.

The hallucination continued, voice taking on an edge. "Maybe they're relieved it was me and not you. The good son survived. Worked out perfectly."

"Stop," he breathed, barely audible.

"You know I'm right," he replied, voice low enough that only himself could hear. Of course only he could hear, no one else could even see him. "You know they're happy about it."

"That's not—" he started, but his voice came out barely a whisper.

"Ma'itan?"

His mother's voice cut through, pulling him partially back to reality. He realized everyone was looking at him: Neytiri with concern creasing her forehead, Jake with that watchful expression he'd worn since the funeral, Kiri with knowing worry, Tuk with confused innocence. All of them staring. All of them seeing him talk to nothing. He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision, trying to make Lo'ak disappear so he could focus on his actual family. But his brother remained stubbornly visible.

"I asked if you wanted more fish. You've barely touched your food."

He looked down at his leaf. She was right, he'd moved the food around, torn it into smaller pieces, created the illusion of eating without actually consuming anything. The fish was cold now, congealing in its own oils. His stomach turned at the thought of putting it in his mouth, is it even edible by now?

"No. Thank you. I'm full."

The lie sat heavy on his tongue. He wasn't full—he was empty, hollowed out. But saying that would require explaining, and explaining would require admitting how little he'd eaten in days, weeks, however long it had been. Well, he'd barely eaten anything. She knew it. He knew she knew it. Her eyes lingered on his face, tracking the hollows under his eyes. She opened her mouth like she might push, might insist, finally confronting what was happening right in front of her.

But she didn't.

She just nodded, small and defeated, and turned back to her own meal.

"See?" He gestured at their family with one hand, the movement sharp and angry. "They don't push. They're too busy to notice you're disappearing right in front of them."

Neteyam couldn't breathe. The air felt too thick. The walls of the Marui were closing in, the fire too hot, his family's presence too much and not enough all at once. He couldn't do this, sit here and pretend while Lo'ak's voice carved him apart from the inside.

"I need air." He stood abruptly, so fast his vision swam. His leaf fell from numb fingers, scattering fish across the woven mat. He didn't stop to clean it up, didn't apologize, not even explain.

Just fled.

Maybe he was alone in this.

But Lo'ak wasn't always cruel. Usually late at night when he'd retreated to the hidden part of a beach, when the village was silent and the only sound was the waves, he was different. More like the brother he remembered. So after being exhausted from another day of performing normalcy, he let the tears come. Just trying to let himself be weak in this one place, with this one person. Even if that person was just a figment of his breaking mind.

"My best wasn't enough." The words came automatic.

"Maybe not." His brother was quiet for a moment, and in that silence hecould almost pretend this was real, that he was really here, really offering comfort. "But it's what you had. You gave everything you could. No one could ask for more than that."

"You're dead because it wasn't enough."

"I'm dead because I got shot, because we were in a war. Shit happens, bro. Not because you didn't try hard enough."

Neteyam wanted to believe that. He desperately wanted to lay down the crushing weight of responsibility and guilt he'd been carrying. But he couldn't. Because if it wasn't his fault, if he truly couldn't have prevented it, then it was just… meaningless. A cruel fate that could never be corrected or atoned for. And somehow that was worse than guilt. At least guilt gave him something to do with the grief because it made him understand why the world had broken. A reason, however terrible.

Without it, there was nothing. Just senseless loss.

"If there was anything you could have done differently, you would have. So no, I don't blame you. How could I?"

The words were everything he needed. Everything he'd been starving for. And they meant nothing. They were poison disguised as medicine, false comfort that only made the truth hurt more when he finally had to face it. Because the real person was dead and couldn't forgive anyone. The real Lo'ak would never know how desperately his big brother needed to hear these words. His real brother was gone, and this—this gentle and forgiving version—was just him talking to himself. Manufacturing the form he craved because the universe had been too cruel to provide it naturally.

Those were the moments that broke him the most.

Water could send him spiraling. The ocean was worst, but even rain could do it. The sound of it hitting leaves, hitting skin. The way it felt running down his face. Like the water that had mixed with blood, the salt in his mouth when they'd pulled Lo'ak from the sea. Tears he'd cried while washing his brother's hair, preparing him for burial. Trapped in his worst memory.

So he had to force himself to just snap out of it.

Just snap out of it.

But the changes were too obvious to hide anymore.

He caught himself talking out loud to his brother during the day now. Not just whispered conversations in private, but actual discussions in the middle of village activities. Mid-convo with living people, he'd turn his head slightly and respond to something his brother had said, forgetting for crucial seconds that no one else could hear him. And to no one's surprise, they'd sometimes let him be until the way he was hallucinating was too much to bare and look at because it got too genuine.

"Pull it tighter on the left side." Lo'ak observed Neteyam with the fishing nets along with his other two friends. He adjusted his grip, following the instruction.

"Better. Now loop it through—no, the other way."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Clearly you don't, or you wouldn't have done that."

"Neteyam?"

He jerked his head up to find both companions staring at him with expressions that ranged from confused to deeply concerned. Aonung's hands had stilled on his own section of net, hovering in mid-motion. Their eyes were a bit wide, like seeing something they shouldn't have saw, or noticing things they didn't usually meet. "Who you talking to?" His friend asked carefully, voice pitched with the same gentle caution people used.

His stomach dropped as reality crashed back. Lo'ak was sitting right there—he could see him clearly, easy for him to reach out and touch him if touching were possible. But to everyone else, he'd been having a full conversation with empty air. And the excuse came automatically, telling them there's nothing to worry about and he's just speaking with himself, worn smooth from overuse.

"It sounded like you were arguing with someone." Rotxo was watching him with the widest and most uncertain eyes. "Like… having a whole conversation."

"I wasn't," he replied, his voice came sharper than intended. "I was just working through the problem. Sometimes I talk to myself when I'm concentrating. Is that a crime now?"

The two of them exchanged glances, seeming more worried than confused. It was the kind of significant looks that communicated entire conversations without words. He's getting worse. Should we tell someone? What do we even say?

"They think you're crazy," his brother said naturally.

Maybe I am, he thought.

One evening, he rested in the Marui pod with Neytiri and Kiri, sitting very close to him. They were talking about plants and flower or something related to it. He tried to listen, very hard and submitting himself to the talk. But again, it was hard to maintain focus on what living people were saying when Lo'ak's presence was so much more vivid, so much more real than anything else in his life.

"Neteyam." Kiri's voice, patient but strained. "Are you listening to me?"

His sister's face was drawn, exhausted. She'd been talking, and he had a vague sense of words washing over him like waves, sounds without meaning, but he had no idea what she'd been saying. He blinked, pulled back from wherever his mind had drifted. The sun was in a different position than he remembered. How long had he been gone?

"Sorry. What?"

"I was asking if you wanted to come with me to gather healing plants tomorrow. Mom thought it might be good for us to spend time together."

"Oh… sure, I guess."

"You didn't hear anything I said before that, did you?" There was no accusation in her voice, just sad resignation. She'd expected this, it was obvious. Like she'd been testing him and he'd failed, again. And all he could do was practically nothing. Silence, couldn't even manufacture a convincing lie.

"I'm sorry." The apology felt hollow, meaningless.

She reached for his hand, squeezed it gently. "Just try to come back sometimes. Please. I miss you."

I miss me too, he wanted to say. I miss who I was before. I miss being someone who could focus on a conversation, who could care about healing plants and sister-time and normal things.

But that person was gone. Had died on the rocks with Lo'ak, or maybe in the days after, or maybe piece by piece over the weeks of trying and failing to hold himself together. All that was left was this: a shell that looked like Neteyam but contained only absence and grief and his dead brother's form. Kiri held his hand a moment longer, then let go. And as she walked away, shoulders bent under the weight of her own grief and his too, the hallucination materialized beside him.

"She's giving up on you," he observed. Not cruel, just stating fact. "They all are, slowly. Can't blame them really. You're not exactly making it easy."

He couldn't argue. Didn't have the energy to argue. Even if he did, his brother was right.

During hunts, he became increasingly reckless, taking risks that made even the most warriors exchange concerned glances.

"Neteyam, fall back!" Jake's voice carried across the water, sharp with command and barely concealed panic.

But he'd already committed. The pxazang was massive, easily more than thrice his size, and he'd swum directly into its path with his spear raised. No backup. Just him and the predator and the razor-thin line between kill and be killed. The creature lunged. He twisted aside at the last second, feeling the gush of water as teeth snapped shut where his torso had been a heartbeat before. The spear found flesh, sinking deep into the vulnerable area behind the jaw, and the water exploded into violent thrashing.

He held on. Let the water drag him deeper, refusing to release his grip on the spear even as his lungs began to burn, even as his rational mind screamed that this was suicide and he needed to let go and surface before—

Hands grabbed him. Yanked him back. Jake had dove after him, was pulling him away from the dying creature. They surfaced together, him gasping and his father immediately spinning him around, hands on his shoulders, eyes wild. He held onto the tsurak, huffing out his almost gone breath.

"What the hell was that?" His father's voice cracked on the words, oscillating between anger and fear.

"I was thinking about completing the hunt." Neteyam's voice came flat. "The creature is dead. We have food. Mission accomplished."

Jake's grip tightened on his shoulder almost painful. "You could have been killed! That thing could have torn you in half! That's not brave, that's a damn SUICIDE!"

The word hung between them, sharp and damning. He held his father's gaze, and something in his expression must have shown some flicker of the truth, of how little he actually cared whether he lived or died because the face he saw went pale. He thought of how he could just die without killing himself, but he couldn't say any of that. In no way he'd admit that every reckless decision was a small suicide attempt disguised as bravery. That he was hoping for an accident that would look like heroism.

"I'm fine." The lie was automatic. "I know what I'm doing."

"No." His father's voice was firm now, cutting through the water between them. "You don't. Because if you did, you wouldn't be taking risks like this. You wouldn't be—" He stopped, visibly struggling for words. "I can't lose you too. Do you understand? So whatever this is, whatever you're doing, it stops. Now."

A younger voice came from his shoulder. "Must be lonely, huh?"

It is.

At least this way, when he finally succeeded in whatever it was he was doing, it wouldn't come as a complete surprise. Why? Because they'd seen it coming. They just hadn't known how to stop it.

The touching started so gradually that Neteyam didn't even notice at first.

His hand would drift to his side during quiet moments—while standing watch, while working alone, while lying in his hammock staring at the ceiling. Pressing against the place where Lo'ak had been wounded. Not hard at first. Just... checking. Because this is where it happened: the bullet entered and his brother started dying. The pressure increased over days, over weeks. What started as a gentle touch became deliberate pushing, fingers digging into flesh until the discomfort bloomed into actual pain.

It felt like something. Like proof he was still capable of physical sensation in a world that had become increasingly numb and distant.

"What are you doing?" Kiri asked one evening, appearing beside him so suddenly he jumped.

He was sitting in front of the Marui, legs dangling above the woven path. His hand was pressed against his side, fingers working into the muscle there with enough force that it would definitely bruise. He'd been doing it without conscious thought, the gesture as automatic as breathing.

"Nothing. Just checking on an old injury." The lie came easy.

"You weren't injured there." His sister's eyes were too knowing of his face. "I was there. I saw where you were hurt. That's not the place."

"I said it's nothing." His voice came sharper than intended, sharp enough that she recoiled slightly. She stared at him for a long moment, hurt and worry warring in her expression. Then she nodded slowly, not believing him but unwilling to push.

"Okay," she said quietly. "But if you need to talk..."

"I know. Thanks, tsmuke."

She left. And his hand returned to his side, pressing harder now, as if punishing himself for snapping at her. As if the pain could somehow balance out the guilt of being cruel to someone who only wanted to help. Hurting myself where his brother was hurt. Because if he couldn't save him, at least he could share his pain. It made sense in a way that nothing else did, although fundamentally broken, so to say.

Then came the water.

It started innocently enough. Longer dives during his morning swims, pushing himself to see how deep he could go, how long he could stay down under the reason of testing his limits. Training, he told himself. Making sure he was strong enough and capable for anything.

But the real reason was simpler. He wanted to know what it felt like. The moment before you drown. The transition from holding your breath to actually dying. Wanted to understand what Lo'ak had experienced, even though he hadn't drowned. Though the specifics were different, it was close enough. Water and death and the final moments of consciousness.

The first time, he surfaced gasping after maybe two minutes, lungs burning, heart racing. Normal and safe.

The second time, he pushed to three minutes. The burning intensified, became urgent. His body screamed at him to surface, every instinct demanding he breathe. But he stayed down while counting seconds.

The third time, he pushed to four minutes. Then five. Soon it became eight. The world started to grey at the edges, consciousness fraying like old rope. His body moved without his permission, trying to surface, trying to save him from himself. He fought it, just for a little longer. Just to see—

Everything went dark.

He came to choking, floating face-up on the surface, his body's autonomic functions having taken over when his consciousness failed. He clung onto a nearby rock. How long had he been out? Well, undoubtingly long enough to have died if his own body hadn't had the instinct to save him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lo'ak stood on the rock beside his arm, terrified.

"Testing limits," Neteyam managed.

"Testing how to kill yourself, you mean." He crouched down.

"If you're going to do this, at least do it right, bro. Don't drown yourself on accident like some amateur. That's just pathetic."

And somehow, the hallucination of his dead brother giving him tips on effective suicide was the most normal conversation they'd had in days. A strange topic, truly. But after all that had happened, this was probably the one that made sense the most. The words should have horrified him. Maybe triggered some alarm or recognition that he was having an extended talk about killing one's self with a hallucination that was actively encouraging it.

"When?"

"I don't know yet." He rolled onto his back, staring at the sky. "Soon."

"Good." Lo'ak settled beside him, and he could feel the presence. "I'm waiting, you know. Getting lonely down there. Hurry up."

Yeah, they felt true.

And then he found his brother's knife.

It happened almost by accident. He was in the family Marui—his parents were elsewhere, probably talking to village leaders or dealing with Tuk. He'd come looking for… what? He couldn't even remember now. But there it was. Resting on a woven mat near Jake's sleeping area. It's been quite a while, maybe a month by now, that made it keeping the sharpness of the river crystal used as the blade. Shining when the light hit on it.

Neteyam picked it up without thinking. The weight was familiar. His brother never kept it as sharp as he should have, always complained about fixing it, and said he'd do it later. Eventually, he had to do it for him, sitting by the fire while his baby brother talked about his day, about Payakan, about nothing and everything. And he'd always listen. But this was different. This time, as he turned the blade over in his hands, he wasn't thinking about maintenance.

He was thinking about how easily it would cut through skin. How simple it would be to end everything if he just—

No.

Not yet.

That night, alone in the far part of the beach, he pulled out the knife again. Studied it under Naranawm's light. The edge caught and reflected the pale glow, beautiful and terrible. He pressed the flat of the blade against his side. Where Lo'ak had been shot. Then, slowly, carefully, he rotated it. Let the edge bite into skin. Just barely. Just enough to sting, to break the surface, letting out the first thin line of blood.

This is where it should have happened, he thought, watching red liquid well up against blue skin. This is where I should have been hit instead.

The pain was sharp, immediate, clarifying in a way that nothing else had been for weeks. It cut through the numbness, made him feel something other than crushing guilt and endless grief. For a second, in an ironic snse, he felt alive once again. He made another cut. Slightly deeper this time. Parallel to the first.

This is what Lo'ak felt. I didn't save him from this.

The blood flowed more freely now, running in small streams down his chest. He watched it with detached fascination.

This is—

"Neteyam…?"

The voice struck him like a thrown stone.

He jolted. The knife flew from his hand and hit the sand. Blood followed, slow and dark, dripping from the blade to the soft ground below, each drop loud in the quiet night. Light spilled through the sky in broken shards, that's how he saw it anyway, silvering the beads on his braids, the curve of his ribs, the red shine along his side where the skin had split again. The night insects had gone still, as if even they were watching. Well, someone else already did the job nonetheless.

Kiri stood right behind him. She hadn't moved closer. Her feet were rooted to the beach, toes digging into the beige soil as though it might give way beneath her. Her face was washed pale by light, eyes too wide, mouth slightly open like she’d forgotten how to breathe. How long had she been there?

"What are you doing?" Her voice was thin. It trembled once and then held, like a thread pulled too tight.

His side burned, heat pulsing with his heartbeat. He pressed his arm against it instinctively, smearing blood across his fingers. "Nothing, I slipped."

Her gaze dropped. Not to his face, but to his side. To the parallel cuts. To the blood soaking into the sand.

"…Slipped?" she whispered. She took one step forward. Then another. Her expression changed with each step, shock folding inward into something raw and terrible. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, knuckles pale. "In the same place? Again?"

The knife lay between them, reflecting the planet as proof. Silent and merciless.

His chest hitched. He looked away. "Please don't tell them." The words came out hoarse, scraped raw from his throat. He didn't lift his head when he continued, couldn't bear to see her face who saw something equally horrific as seeing Lo'ak's dead body. "Please. I can't."

His sister made a small, broken sound. Tears spilled fast now, tracking down her cheeks unchecked. She pressed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking, as if she were trying to keep herself from breaking apart entirely. For a long moment, neither of them moved, until she finally lunged in and hugged him from his side, cradling his face into her arms. She leaned her ear onto his head, whispering things like being thankful to the Great Mother for not taking the only brother she had left. It torn—no, it shredded him into pieces.

"I won't,” she said. "But you stop. You promise."

"I promise."

The lie slid out smooth. It tasted like metal.

Kiri's hands shook as she opened the small healing kit at her hip, fingers fumbling over familiar tools. She cleaned the wounds gently, carefully, as if touching him too hard might make him shatter. Her tears fell onto his skin, warm against the cold night air. Neteyam stared up at the stars peeking through the clouds. At anything except her face. When she finished, she tied the bandages too tight, then apologized under her breath and loosened them with trembling fingers.

Across the sea, Lo'ak stood half in shadow, half in moonlight. Watching. Unmoving.

"I can't lose you too," she murmured.

He didn't answer because they both knew she already had.

The brother she was trying to save was gone, buried alongside Lo'ak. What remained was a hollowed thing, wrapped in familiar skin, filled with pain and guilt.

After that night, Kiri stayed close.

Too close.

Neteyam felt her presence before he saw her now. The soft pad of her steps in the sand. The pause behind him, hesitant, like she was bracing herself before speaking. He learned to recognize the shape of her worry in the air. He made it harder anyway. He answered her questions with clipped replies, with silences sharp enough to cut. Built walls out of absence, out of looking through her instead of at her. And she kept running herself against them.

She found him on the beach one evening, sitting where the sand was still damp from the retreating tide. The sky was bruised purple and gold. Waves rolled in slow, heavy breaths, foam licking at his feet. He didn't move when she sat beside him.

"Talk to me," she started. Her voice was soft, already tired. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped tight like prayer. The wind tugged loose strands of her hair across her face, and she didn't brush them away.

"There's nothing to say."

The words came flat, scraped clean of emotion. He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, on the place where the sky dissolved into water. It was easier to look at something endless than at her. Silence stretched between them. The surf crept closer, foam reaching for his feet before sliding back again.

"You're fading," she said. "You're right here, and you're gone."

He flexed his fingers in the sand, grains sticking to the damp of his skin. "Maybe that's not your problem."

She inhaled sharply. "You're my brother."

"That doesn't mean you can fix me. You're wasting time."

He turned to face her then, slow and deliberate, forcing her to see what she’d been skirting around. He meant the words to hurt. He needed them to. She flinched. Just barely. Like the blow had landed somewhere internal. Her shoulders drew in on themselves. Moonlight had crept in early, or he probably lost track of time, sharpening every line of his face. His cheekbones jutted too prominently now, shadows pooling beneath his eyes. His skin looked stretched thin over bone, as if he were being hollowed out from the inside.

"Look at me," he said quietly.

She did.

Really did. Her expression changed as her eyes traced the evidence he never spoke of. The way he stood too still, like movement cost too much. The tension in his jaw, teeth clenched hard enough to ache. The things he avoided saying. The laughter that never reached his eyes anymore. The brother-shaped absence where someone solid used to be.

"I see my brother," she said. Her voice wavered. It nearly broke.

"You see a ghost." His voice dropped.

"Don't," she whispered.

He turned away again, cutting her off with his back. The ocean answered for him, waves crashing harder now as the wind picked up, tugging at his braids, at the loose edge of his loincloth. "Go," he said. "Tuk needs you."

She didn't move.

"…I don't want you here."

Kiri rose slowly, like her legs might give out beneath her. She stood behind him for a long moment, trembling with the effort of holding herself together. He could feel her there, could feel the weight of her grief pressing into his back. When she left, her footprints didn't last long. The tide erased them within minutes, smoothing the sand as if she'd never been there at all. He stared at the empty space she occupied. Something twisted in his chest. It might been regret. But it passed quickly, swallowed by relief.

Relief that the pressure was gone.

But not before he heard her mumbling that she loved him still, even if he stopped loving as a whole.

He avoided Spider entirely now.

It wasn't difficult. The village was large enough, the paths winding and layered, easy to disappear into if you knew how. Neteyam had always known how. Spider was human, loud by accident, always moving and visible, intentional or not. Avoiding him meant turning early, choosing longer paths, lingering until footsteps passed. It meant scanning clearings before entering them, muscles tightening whenever he heard boots on wood or that familiar uneven rhythm he had when he ran. Delayed meals. Left early. Returned late.

Anything to avoid seeing that face.

He couldn't look at him.

Every time he did, his mind snapped backward to that day. To the chaos. To the shouting and the smoke and the way they’d all been there and it still hadn't mattered. The memory clung like wet sand, heavy and inescapable. The human's presence sharpened it.

Still, Spider tried.

He always did, awkward and earnest in a way that felt almost painful now. He could see the effort in the boy (it felt a bit weird calling him that, considering that he's in fact the oldest from all of the Sullys), the careful timing, the way he hovered on the edge of conversations before finally stepping forward. It was obvious he'd been sent. Jake, maybe, or Kiri, when she still thought trying might help.

"Hey, man, I just wanted to—"

Neteyam didn't slow. His strides lengthened instead, feet hitting the path, shoulders squared. "Can't talk. Work to do."

He passed the human without looking at him, the space between them brushing like a near miss. He hurried to keep up, breath puffing a little harder. "But I asked Kiri, you're supposed to be free—"

"I said I can't talk."

This time he stopped. The suddenness of it made Spider stumble half a step before catching himself. He turned then. Really looked at him. His face was closed off, expression carved from something hard and cold. The look alone made the boy step back without realizing he'd just done it, shoulders stiffening. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that.

"What part of that is unclear?"

The boy's shoulders slumped. The hurt crossed his face before he could bury it. "I just… I'm worried about you. I thought, maybe if you wanted to talk—"

"I don't."

"I was there too." The words sounded small in open air, but that did it.

His voice dropped, low and tight. "You don't know anything."

The other swallowed. His mouth opened, closed again. "I didn't mean to make it worse."

His chest felt too tight, lungs refusing to expand properly. He looked away, fingers curling into fists at his sides. "Just leave me alone," he said. Quieter now. "I can't do this with you."

He turned and left before the boy could answer. Before he could see the hurt deepen into something heavier, guilt added another name to its list. After that, Spider stopped trying. He started avoiding Neteyam instead, veering off paths when they might cross, finding excuses to be elsewhere. Laughter cut short. A careful, deliberate absence.

Tsireya was harder to avoid.

She moved through the family's space like water, quietly persistent, always finding her way in no matter how Neteyam tried to reroute himself. She came with food balanced carefully in woven trays, with soft smiles and unspoken understanding. She helped Neytiri with Tuk, her hands gentle and sure, lifting the child with practiced ease, humming low under her breath when Tuk grew fussy. She lingered without intruding, the way someone does when they want to help but don't know how.

Every time he saw her, his chest tightened.

She didn't look away from grief. She carried it openly, cleanly, like a wound she allowed to breathe. Her eyes were often red, lashes clumped from tears she didn't bother hiding. When she spoke Lo'ak's name, her voice shook, but she didn't flinch from it. She let the pain exist.

That was what made his skin crawl.

She caught him alone one afternoon near the edge of the village, where the platforms dipped lower and the sounds of the sea crept in between voices. The sun hung low, turning everything gold and salt-bright. Neteyam was sharpening a blade that didn't need sharpening, movements slow and repetitive, grinding metal to metal just to hear the sound.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

Her voice was soft. She stood a few steps away, giving him space even as she reached out.

"Fine." The word came out automatically. Empty. He didn't look up.

She shifted her weight, toes curling against the woven path. "It's okay to not be fine."

The blade rasped against the stone.

"Lo'ak was—" Her voice caught. She stopped, swallowed hard. When she spoke again, tears were already shining in her eyes. "He was special. I know you must miss him."

She missed Lo'ak because he was gone. He missed him because he had failed. They were not the same, not even a little bit.

"I don't need to talk," he said, sharper than he mean it.

Her face fell, just slightly. "You should. Lo'ak would have—"

"Don't."

The word snapped between them, cold and final. Tsireya recoiled like she'd been struck.

"Don't tell me what he would have wanted," Neteyam said, voice low. "You don't get to use him to make me talk."

Silence pressed in around them, thick and suffocating. "Just stop trying, let me deal with this my way."

Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "Your way is killing you!" The truth of it landed like a blow. His breath stuttered despite himself.

"Maybe," he said after a moment.

She took a step closer, desperation breaking through her restraint. "Lo'ak wouldn't want this—"

"My brother is dead!" The words tore out of him, loud and raw. Birds startled from nearby branches. She stumbled back as if the sound itself had struck her. "He doesn't want anything anymore. Why? Because he's gone. And what I do with that is not your concern."

Tsireya froze. Tears streamed down her face unchecked, her hands pressed to her mouth like she was holding herself together by force alone. For one terrible moment, she looked achingly like Tuk when she cried, small and shattered and helpless. Something cracked in Neteyam's chest.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

She backed away, then turned and fled, her footsteps uneven, shoulders shaking as she disappeared down the walkway. He didn't stop her. He stood there long after she was gone, staring at the place she'd been. The sea murmured below, endless and uncaring. His chest felt hollow, scraped clean, like something vital had been torn out and left bleeding. It might have been guilt.

But guilt required caring about more than one loss.

And he had already spent everything he had on Lo'ak.

Tsireya stopped visiting after that. Stopped bringing food to the family, stopped checking in on Neytiri, stopped trying to maintain any connection to the Sullys who reminded her too much of what she'd lost. And he told himself it was better this way. Better she moved on. Better she learned to live without him before she had to.

Because what else did he have left to believe in?

Night came, and he decided to just isolate himself like he always did. Maybe his mother had already realized about hid disappearance for a while. No like she cared a lot anyway.

"You're thinking about it more," Lo'ak observed.

"About what?" Though they both knew.

"Following me. Coming home." His voice was gentle, yet coaxing. "Would it really be worse than this? Than the guilt and the memories and the endless performance of pretending you want to be alive?"

"I don't know," Neteyam whispered to the darkness.

"You do know. You just won't admit it." His hand moved as if to touch his shoulder, stopping just short as it always did. The accuracy of it made his chest tighten.

"And I'm alone down there," the hallucination added, voice dropping lower, more intimate. "It's peaceful, yeah. But it's lonely. I miss you, bro. Miss having you close. Miss—" His voice caught in a way that sounded heartbreakingly real. "Miss being brothers."

Something cracked in his chest. "We're still brothers."

His brother gestured between them. "Are we? You talking to me while everyone thinks you're insane? Me being this—this echo that's not really me but is the only piece of me you have left?"

"You're asking me to die."

"I'm asking you to stop suffering." Lo'ak was gentle but insistent. "There's a difference."

Was there? Neteyam wasn't sure anymore. The line between ending suffering and ending existence had blurred until they were indistinguishable. And he did think about it. Thought about it during training sessions where his body moved through drills his mind was no longer present for, meals he couldn't taste, food that sat like stones in his stomach, the long nights when sleep was impossible and the only company he had was his dead brother's hallucination. The thought that had started as a whisper was now a loud, drowning out everything else.

He just had to be brave enough to follow through.

The blade is heavier than Neteyam remembers.

Or maybe his hands are just weaker now—trembling, fingers barely maintaining their grip on the worn leather handle. He can't tell anymore. Can't distinguish between the knife's actual weight and the metaphorical burden it carries, between physical weakness and the soul-deep exhaustion that makes everything feel impossible.

It's the same knife covered in the fronds of a tautral he desperately tried to get from the tree to make it more unique. It replaced his old one. Jake gave it to him the night he completed his Unilatron, pressing it into his palm with a firm grip and pride in his eyes. "You're a man now," his father had said. "Use this to protect the People and your family." The handle is now smooth from years of use, molded to the shape of his hand. And that blade is the one he's used to hunt, to protect, to provide for all of his little siblings.

It's for a much different use now, though.

The moons and stars hang low and swollen over the ocean, Naranawm casting her pale light across the water in a shimmering path that looks almost solid enough to walk on. Almost like a bridge. The beach is empty at this hour. It has to be, that's why he chose it. This isolated stretch of sand and rock where no one comes after dark, where the village lights are distant pinpricks barely visible through the palms, where he can be alone with his decision and the hallucination that's been haunting him for weeks.

Salt coats his lips. The wind cuts across the exposed skin of his arms and chest, carrying the sounds of waves against shore. The sound should be soothing, since everyone says the ocean is peaceful, a gift from Eywa herself.

He finds it deafening.

Each retreat of water against sand marks another second of living he doesn't want, another moment of drawing breath when Lo'ak can't, another beat of a heart that should have stopped weeks ago on bloodied rocks while his brother's did. His feet are in the surf, toes buried in wet sand that shifts with each wave. The water is cold despite Awa'atlu's tropical warmth, or maybe he's just cold everywhere now. Maybe he'll always be cold, has been cold since the moment his brother's body went still in his arms and all the warmth in the world died with him.

The blade catches the silver light as he turns it slowly in his hands. It's perfectly sharp, well, he made sure of that earlier, spent careful minutes with the whetstone while his family slept, methodical and thorough because if he was going to do this, he'd do it right.

He presses the flat of the blade against his left wrist, feeling the cool metal on his pulse point. His heart hammers against the ribs; fast, panicked, the body's instinct screaming that this is wrong, that survival is paramount and he needs to stop. But his mind is quiet, even almost peaceful in its certainty.

This is right. This is the correction the universe failed to make when it took Lo'ak instead of him.

Going home.

"Are you really going to do it?" The nonexistent voice comes from behind him, and Neteyam doesn't turn because he doesn't need to. He can feel the presence settling beside him. That now-familiar warmth, that sense of space being occupied by something that shouldn't exist.

"Yes."

He rotates the blade slowly, bringing the edge to bear against his skin. The metal is cold and sharp. His hand is surprisingly steady now. All those weeks of breaking down, of fragmenting piece by piece, destroying himself slowly while everyone watched and no one could stop him, it all led here.

He thinks about the funeral. How he held Lo'ak's body and couldn't let go. How his mother had to pry his fingers away, one by one. How the body sank into the Cove and he wanted to follow, wanted to breathe water until everything stopped. He thinks about yesterday, or last week, or this morning—time is strange now—when he still saw him standing by the cooking fire. Just standing there, watching him. Smiling that crooked smile. No one else saw him. Kiri asked who he was talking to. He couldn't answer.

Would you forgive me?

He doesn't know who he's asking. Lo'ak? His parents? Eywa?

Himself?

He increases the pressure. The edge bites into skin, sharp and immediate. A thin line of pain that's almost welcome. His fingers adjust their grip. Warrior's training. He knows exactly where to cut, how deep, how quick.

He knows how to kill.

Lo'ak.

The name is a prayer. An apology. A plea.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried.

Just a little more pressure—

"Neteyam?"

His blood turns to ice. A sound cuts, high-pitched. Young and confused.

No. No, no—

He jerks his head up, blade still pressed to his wrist, and sees her.

Tuk.

Standing maybe twenty feet away behind his back, small and impossibly present, her arms full of shells that she must have been collecting in the moonlight. Her favorite activity, hunting for the prettiest ones to add to her collection, to string into necklaces for Mom or bracelets for Kiri. She does it when she can't sleep. When the nightmares wake her and the Marui feels too small and she needs to do something normal and innocent, or things that makes sense in a world that stopped making sense the day Lo'ak died.

Her eyes are wide. Fixed on him. On the blade pressed to his wrist. On the position of his body, the clear intent. She doesn't understand, surely she's too young, but she knows. Somehow, she knows something is very wrong. The shells slip from her arms, clattering against rocks and sand in a cascade of sound that's impossibly loud.

"Neteyam?" she repeats, voice climbing higher, thinner. "What are you doing?"

He can't move, breath, not anything except stare at his baby sister while horror floods his system. She wasn't supposed to be here. No one was supposed to be here. He'd planned this so carefully, had waited until everyone was asleep, chose the most isolated spot precisely so no one would find him until it was too late to stop, too late to save except calling the family to collect another body. But Tuk is here.

Tuk is here, seeing this, seeing him, and the blade is still pressed to his wrist and she's staring with those wide, uncomprehending eyes and—

"Tuk." His voice comes out strangled, barely recognizable. "Why are you still up? You should be asleep."

"I couldn't sleep." Her voice is small, uncertain. She takes a step forward, then stops like she's afraid to get closer, afraid of what she's witnessing. "I had a bad dream about… about Lo'ak. So I came to find shells. To feel better." The shells she dropped are scattered around her feet, glinting in the light like small broken promises.

Her words come urgent, desperate. "You need to go back. Go back to our home. Go back to Mom and…"

"Why do you have a knife?" She's staring at his wrist now, at the blade pressed against skin, at the thin line of blood that's already started from the initial pressure. "Neteyam, why are you—" She can't even finish the question. But her face is clear in doing terrible things, understanding beginning to dawn even though she's too young, far too little to understand what she's seeing.

"It's not, Tuk. I'm not—" He scrambles for an explanation, but his mind is blank and empty, offering nothing except static and panic. "Just go. Please."

"KIRI!"

The scream is ear-splitting, pure terror given voice. Her small chest heaves with the force of it, face crumpling as tears start to pour. "KIRI, HELP! NETEYAM'S HURTING HIMSELF!"

No.

Movement in the trees. And then Kiri is there, exploding from the tree line like she'd been running, probably had heard their little sister scream and came immediately, maybe even had been looking for her when she wandered off—

She freezes. Takes in the scene in a glance: Neteyam on the beach, blade to his wrist, blood already starting to flow, her sister standing twenty feet away screaming and crying, shells scattered everywhere like evidence of innocence shattered. Her face goes looked in horror, but a hint of desperate was obvious, before settling into something that looks like determination.

"Tuk, come here." Her voice is steady despite the visible trembling of her body, tears already streaming down her face. She extends one hand toward their little sister while her eyes stay locked on him. "Come to me right now. Don't look. Just come here."

"But Neteyam—"

"Now, Tuk."

The command in her voice brooks no argument. The girl stumbles forward, sobbing, and she catches her, pulling her close, turning her face into her shoulder so she can't see. But she already saw. The damage is done. And she looks at him with an expression that breaks something in his chest that he didn't know could still feel. He'd expected anger, could have handled anger. But love and desperate, the terrible awareness that she's seeing him at his absolute worst.

"Brother," she calls. "Please. Please put down the knife."

He knows he should. Tuk is here, traumatized and crying, and Kiri is here, and everything is ruined, the moment is shattered, the peaceful ending he'd planned exploded into this intervention. But the blade is still pressed to his wrist. Still sharp and right there. His hand trembles. The blade bites deeper, drawing more blood. The pain is almost welcome after weeks of emotional numbness. He finish it before his sisters reach him, simply completing what he started despite the audience.

"Neteyam." Her voice is urgent now, rising with panic barely contained. "Please. I see you. I see you, brother. You're in pain and you're hurting and you think this is the answer but it's not. Trust me, just put down the knife."

"You don't understand." He comes out broken. "I have to. He's waiting, my brother is alone, and I'm supposed to be with him, I'm supposed to—"

"Lo'ak is dead!" Her shout cuts across his words like a blade. The little girl flinches against her shoulder, crying harder. "He's dead, Neteyam. And killing yourself won't bring him back! It'll just… it'll just—" She cries openly now, still holding Tuk with one arm while the other extends toward him like she might be able to reach across the distance, might be able to pull him back from the edge through sheer force of will.

"It'll just destroy us," she finishes in a whisper.

"We already lost Lo'ak. We can't—I can't lose you too. Please, brother, don't do this. Not like this."

Tuk's sobbing is getting louder and more hysterical. "Why is he hurting himself? Kiri, why would he do that? I don't understand!"

"Shh, tsmuke, it's okay, just don't look."

"It's not okay! Nothing's okay! Make him stop—"

The sound of his baby sister's anguish cuts through the fog in Neteyam's mind like nothing else has. She sounds terrified and traumatized in the same time. Because of him. Because he couldn't even do this right, not even managing to destroy himself without destroying her too in the process. The blade trembles against his wrist. Blood runs in thin streams down his hand, dripping onto the sand beneath him, dark against pale ground. He looks at Tuk, all small and shaking and sobbing into Kiri's shoulder, and something in his chest cracks. Not enough to make him want to live or fix anything.

Just enough to make him hesitate.

They're close now. Maybe ten feet away. Close enough that if she lunged she might reach him, might be able to grab the knife.

"Kiri, stay back. I can't let you—"

"Let me what? Save you?" She's still moving, perhaps driven by protectiveness of an older sister who's already lost one brother. "Let me stop you from making the worst mistake of your life?"

"From fixing what should've been fixed on those rocks!" The words explode out of him. "It should've been me! It should've been me who died. And every day I keep breathing is wrong, is a damn insult to him, is—"

"Is what Lo'ak would have hated. You think he'd want this? He loved you, Neteyam. He loved you. And this—" she gestures at the blade, at the blood, at all of it, "—this isn't honoring him. This is just more loss."

She's right in front of him now, close enough to touch. She's seeing every detail of his breaking: the hollow eyes, the sharp features, the blood on his wrist, the blade still pressed to skin. "You're the strongest person I know. Be strong enough to carry this too. Just for tonight. Just put down the knife and let me help you and we'll figure out tomorrow when tomorrow comes, because I know it will for the three of us."

Behind her, Tuk lifted her face from Kiri's shoulder. Is watching with red, swollen eyes. Looking at her older brother like he's a stranger, become something frightening and incomprehensible. She looks at him the way she looked at Lo'ak's body before they lowered it into the Cove: with denial and the dawning awareness that someone fundamental to her life has broken and can never be fixed. He did that to her. Stolen her her sense of safety and replaced it with the knowledge that the world is cruel and people you love can hurt themselves and nothing is ever actually okay.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, though he doesn't know who he's apologizing to. Tuk? Kiri? Lo'ak? Himself? "I'm so sorry."

The blade slips from his fingers.

Not because he decides to release it. Not because his siter takes it. Just because his hand gives out, strength finally failing, the weight too heavy to hold anymore.

It falls to the sand with a soft thud, immediately kicked away by her who lunges forward to catch him as he sways. But she doesn't catch him the way he expects; doesn't grab him from the front, doesn't try to restrain him face-to-face like she's stopping an attack. Instead, she comes from the side. Wraps her arms around him from his right, pressing her face against his shoulder, holding on with a grip that's part embrace and part restraint, all desperate love.

"I've got you," she's saying, voice shaking so badly the words barely hold together. "I've got you, brother. I've got you."

And then—

Small arms wrap around his waist from the front.

Tuk.

She's there suddenly, pressed against his chest, her face buried in his stomach, her small body shaking with sobs that feel too large for her frame. Her arms barely meet around him but she holds on anyway, gripping him with the strength of someone terrified of letting go. She lifts his wrist, and he lets her because he doesn't have any energy to resist anymore. Until he finally realizes that the blood was still dripping, seeming endlessly.

"Don't leave," she's crying into his skin, his bloodied hand pressed onto her right cheek, voice muffled and broken. "Please don't leave, Neteyam, please stay with me here."

His breath catches.

Because her face is pressed right where the blood is. Where it's still flowing sluggishly from the cut on his wrist, running down his arm, dripping onto his torso. Smearing across her cheek, getting in her hair, staining her face with his failure, his shame. His baby sister. His baby sister who should never have seen this, or even be here, and should be innocent and untouched by this kind of horror. But she's here, holding him. And her face—Eywa, her tearful face—is smeared red with his blood, dark against her blue skin.

His knees buckle.

He should push her away. Tell her not to touch him, not to get any closer to this mess he's made. He wants to protect her from the physical evidence of what he almost did. But he can't move nor speak. The only thing he does is standing there between his sisters while they hold him together.

The tears come silently at first. Just wetness on his cheeks, running down his face without sound. Tears that have been building for weeks but had nowhere to go, locked away behind walls and the desperate need to hold together. But he can't hold together anymore. Not now. Can't maintain the facade, keep pretending, or do anything except stand between his sisters and break. It slid down his face, dripping onto the little girl's head where she's pressed against him. Mixing with the blood, with the salt from the ocean spray, with everything else that's wet and wrong.

He's crying. Really crying. The kind of tears that come from somewhere deep, that don't make sound but hurt worse than anything he's ever felt.

"I love you," she says, small voice nearly lost under her crying. "I love you, Neteyam. Please stay. Please."

And that breaks something final inside him. His arms come up slowly. One wraps around Kiri's shoulders where she's pressed against his side. The other settles on Tuk's back, holding her small form against him. Not hugging, exactly. More like clinging. Like they're the only solid things in a world that's become liquid and unstable, where letting go means disappearing entirely; at some point, they become anchors keeping him tethered to something real.

And he cries.

The ocean keeps its rhythm behind them. The moon and stars watches overhead, impassive and eternal. The blade lies in the sand a few feet away, abandoned but not forgotten. And Neteyam stands between his sisters: Kiri holding him from the side while Tuk holding him from the front, small and scared and covered in his blood, and cries silently for everything he's lost and everything he's almost destroyed and the other things he still can't fix. They hold him together. Literally hold him up, keep him standing when his legs want to give out.

And somewhere, just distantly fading, is his hallucination of Lo'ak, watching from afar.

Or maybe doesn't. Maybe was never there at all. Perhaps it was always just Neteyam, alone with his grief, seeing what he needed to see to justify what he wanted to do.

For tonight, his sisters hold him.

And he lets them.

Because what else is there to do?

Days pass after the beach. Or maybe weeks. Neteyam can't track time anymore—it all blurs together into an endless cycle of careful supervision and suffocating worry.

But his parents don't know. Not yet.

Kiri and Tuk keep the secret. Shield him from the intervention that would surely come if Jake and Neytiri discovered how close he came. The little girl doesn't fully understand what she's hiding, but she simply knows that something terrible almost happened and telling their parents would make everything worse somehow. She watches her brother with wide, frightened eyes, checks on him constantly, but says nothing. The older sister, on the other hand, stays close without smothering, walking the line between keeping him alive and keeping the secret.

She changes his bandages in private, hiding the bloodstained cloths. Makes excuses when their parents notice his withdrawn state. "He's just grieving, give him time, he needs space." The lie costs her. He can see it eating at her: the knowledge that she should tell, that keeping this secret might kill him, that she's choosing trust over safety. But she keeps it anyway for reasons he doesn't fully understand but is desperately grateful for.

The hallucinations continues. Lo'ak still appears, sitting across from him at meals, walking beside him during forced activities, standing at the edge of his vision like a reminder of everything he'd failed to do. But something shifts. When he speaks, the words feels distant, muffled, like they were coming from underwater. And sometimes, when Neteyam looks directly at him, his brother flickers, looking like a fade. Become translucent around the edges.

Like even the hallucination's giving up on him.

It's Kiri who suggests the Spirit Tree.

Not directly. She's too careful for that now, but she mentions it one evening while they sit together watching the sunset, Tuk curled between them.

"I visited the Cove yesterday," she says quietly. "Connected to the Tree. It was… peaceful."

He says nothing. Just staring at the horizon where water met sky.

"Maybe you should try, maybe it can help. To see him there. Y'know, like actually see him, not—" She stops. They both know what she means. Not the hallucination nor the broken thing his mind created. The real memory of him.

"Maybe," he replies, just to end the conversation.

But the suggestion lodges in his mind like a splinter. Works its way deeper over the following days until it's all he can think about. The Spirit Tree. Where his brother actually is. Where the real memories live, held by Eywa, preserved and true. Not the twisted version his grief manufactured that encouraged his death. Not the hallucination that reflects his worst thoughts back at him. Just… Lo'ak. As he was and he'll always be in those sacred memories.

He waits until late at night when supervision finally loosens. When even Kiri's eyes has to give way to exhaustion. When Tuk has finally fallen into restless sleep and his parents have retreated to their own part of the Marui pod. He moves quietly, slipping from his hammock. Pauses. Listens.

No one stirs.

The ocean is cold. The depth doesn't frighten him. The darkness doesn't deter him. The Cove of the Ancestors glows ahead, syuratan marking the way. He's been here before: for the funeral, for brief visits when he can't stand to be on land anymore. But he's never connected, or bringing his kuru to the purple tendrils. He's been too afraid of what he'll find.

The Spirit Tree rises from the depths, massive and ancient and glowing with that particular light that's neither sun nor moon but something else entirely. His lungs burn. He's been down longer than is safe, pushed his limits, but he's good at that now. Seeing how close to the edge he can get. He reaches for a tendril. It moves toward him like it's been waiting, curling around his hand with gentle insistence.

His kuru comes forward. He makes tsaheylu.

The world disappears.

He's standing on solid ground. In filtered sunlight and surrounded by trees that reach so high they seem to touch the sky. Home. Ayram Alusìng, the dense jungle of the Omatikaya. The forest where he grew up, learned to hunt and fight and be the perfect son. Where he learned to protect his siblings, but the first one he held onto was Lo'ak. The air is warm and thick with life. He can hear it—birds calling, leaves rustling, the distant sound of water running over rocks. Everything vivid and real in a way reality hasn't been for weeks.

He takes a breath. It fills his lungs without effort, without pain. In this place of memory, can his body remember.

Movement ahead. Through the trees, quick and fluid. Someone running.

His breath catches.

Lo'ak.

His feet move before his mind catches up. He's running, crashing through undergrowth that doesn't quite feel solid, chasing a figure that stays maddeningly ahead.

"Lo'ak!"

The figure glances back and smiles. Wide and bright. Then he's off again, faster now, like this is a game. Like when they were children and his baby brother would dare Neteyam to chase him through the forest, knowing his older brother was faster but betting on his own agility to compensate. He pushes harder, body feeling light here, unburdened by the weight he's been carrying. No crushing guilt, no suffocating grief. Just movement and the familiar rhythm of running through forest that knows him.

He gains ground and draws closer. Until they're running side by side, weaving between trees, jumping fallen logs, moving in that synchronized way they developed over years of training together. His brother is laughing. That specific laugh is the one that comes when he's truly happy, nothing else matters except the moment he's in. He almost stumbles hearing it.

They burst into a clearing and he stops, breathing hard, grinning.

It's their clearing. The one they claimed as children. They practiced in secret when their father's training got too intense. They shared complaints and dreams and the kind of things that siblings have when no one else is listening.

Lo'ak bends over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. "Almost had me. You're getting slow, old man."

Neteyam stops a few feet away. He can't move closer, not even breathe properly despite his lungs working fine. Because his brother is right here. Looking exactly as he had before Awa'atlu, before the reef, before everything broke. Maybe thirteen, still carrying some youth in his face before war and loss sharpened his features. Unburdened and impossibly alive.

"You good?" The young memory straightens, tilting his head. "You look weird."

"Lo'ak." His voice comes out rough. Broken.

"What's up?" His smile fades into concern. "Did something happen?"

He crosses the distance between them in three steps. Reaches out with shaking hands and just… hugs him. Wraps his arms around his little brother and holds on like he'll disappear if he lets go. Buries his face in shoulder and feels his wamrth radiating from his skin, solid in a way the hallucination never has been, and of course, never could be. He's clutching at his back, trying to hold on to something that feels like it's already slipping away.

Arms come around him automatically, returning the embrace with growing confusion. "You're kind of freaking me out, bro."

But Neteyam can't answer, let alone explain. He only holds his brother and shake with the force of finally being able to touch him again and knowing he's here, even if this is just a memory, just a dream, just whatever this sacred place offers. It doesn't matter. For this moment, Lo'ak is in his arms.

For this moment, he's not too late.

"I miss you… so much," he chokes out.

"Dude, I'm right here." A hand comes up to pat his back awkwardly. "You okay? You're acting really weird."

"I just… I just need to hug you. Just let me—"

"Okay, okay." His tone shifts, becoming gentler yet still concerned. "It's fine, I guess. Hug away. What happened? Did Dad do something? Wait, did I do something?"

Neteyam shakes his head against his brother's shoulder, unable to form words. The hallucination never felt like this. Never had this warmth, this substance. His face is pressed into the junction where the neck meets shoulder, a familiar spot he remembers from when they were children and he'd comfort Lo'ak after nightmares, after Dad's harsh training sessions, after fights with other kids who called him a freak for his fingers. But now it's reversed. Now he's the one breaking, and the memory of him is the one standing steady.

And his baby brother, confused but patient, lets him. Stands there in the clearing with sunlight filtering through leaves above them, with the sounds of the forest surrounding them, with the wind rustling through the canopy, and just... holds his older brother while he falls apart in his arms. His own arms come up to return the embrace. One hand settles between his shoulder blades, the other at his lower back. How many times have they stood like this?

"Hey, whatever it is, we'll figure it out together," he says after a moment.

That together is an illusion when one of them is dead and the other is clinging to a memory in a sacred place between worlds. It breaks something in his chest because Lo'ak doesn't know. This version of him will never carry the weight of his own death, the trauma of dying young, the knowledge of what his loss did to his family. He gets to stay here. while he has to go back to a world where his brother is gone.

"I couldn't save you," he whispers against the shoulder.

The body stiffens slightly, and then he's pulling back—not breaking the embrace entirely, but creating enough space to see each other's face. "Save me from what?" The concern in his face is genuine. Because this memory still believes that whatever nightmare one of them is trapped in can be defeated with enough brotherly support, enough love.

"Nothing," he says finally. "Just… really bad dreams."

His expression softens. "About me?"

"Yeah."

"What happened in them?"

His throat feels tight, constricted, like the words are fighting their way out. "You got hurt. And I wasn't fast enough. I couldn't—"

The confession hangs between them, incomplete but damning. All the things he couldn't do. All the ways he failed. All the strength that meant nothing when it mattered most. Lo'ak is quiet for a moment. Just stands there with his hands on Neteyam's shoulders, face thoughtful in that way he gets when he's processing something serious, trying to figure out how to help without making it worse.

His hands squeeze. "It was just a dream bro," he says. "I'm fine. See?" He steps back, breaking contact, and spreads his arms wide. It's a gesture that says look at me, I'm still here. His stance is relaxed, easy, weight balanced on both feet.

"I know." But his voice wavers, trembles on the two small words.

"Come here."

The memory steps forward, closing the distance he can't cross himself, and pulls him back into the embrace. And this time it's different. This time his brother's the one doing the comforting. His arms wrap around him with surprising strength, making it easy to forget how strong his little bro got, how much muscle he built training to be a warrior despite his dad's doubts. One hand comes up to the back of his head, fingers threading into his hair in a gesture that's achingly familiar, something he did when he was scared or hurt kid.

Now Lo'ak does it for Neteyam. The protected becoming protector.

He lets himself be held. Lets his weight sag against his brother who supports him for once instead of the other way around.

"I love you," he whispers.

"You're being really dramatic today, but I love you too, weirdo." The gentle mockery meant to lighten the mood. Always had to crack a joke, diffuse tension with humor even when the situation was serious. It used to frustrate him sometimes, but now he'd give anything to hear his brother joke and make comments during solemn moments for the rest of his life.

"Well, whatever's going on in your head, you don't have to deal with it alone." Each word is deliberate. "That's what brothers are for, right? We face stuff together."

That word again.

"Yeah," he manages, voice rough and thick. "Together."

"Good."

Lo'ak's face transforms. The seriousness melts away, replaced by that familiar grin, the crooked one that always meant trouble. But it's softened now by affection, by relief that his brother seems better.

"So stop being all sappy. It's creeping me out."

Meant to make Neteyam smile, to lighten the heavy mood that's settled over them like fog. And despite the grief, he laughs. It comes out wet and broken, more sob than laugh, cracking in the middle and trailing into something that might be a gasp or a hiccup. But it's still a laugh.

"That's better. Come on, race you back—"

But he's already starting to fade.

It happens fast this time. No gradual dissolution. One moment he's solid and present, grinning and ready to run. The next, he's becoming translucent. The light is changing, the forest losing focus, the clearing starting to blur around the edges. The tsaheylu is breaking, pulling him back to his body, back to the cold water of the Cove where his physical form waits.

"Wait—"

Neteyam lunges forward, reaching for Lo'ak with desperate hands. But his fingers pass through air, through the space where his brother was standing, through nothing.

"I have to go." The words rip out of him, anguished and desperate. He's being pulled away—can feel it now, the insistent tug of the connection ending, his consciousness returning.

"I'm sorry. I have to—"

"Go where?" His brother's face is shifting between confusion and alarm. He takes a step forward but he's fading faster now, becoming more ghost than boy.

Eventually, Lo'ak goes quiet. He's looking at Neteyam with an expression that's too knowing, too sad for someone who supposedly doesn't understand.

"Will you come back? Can you?"

"I think so."

"Good. Then this isn't goodbye. Just… see you later."

The days after the Spirit Tree visit blur together, but they blur differently now.

Not the same numb fog that consumed the weeks following Lo'ak's death. Not the same endless grey where nothing mattered and everything hurt equally. This is... textured. Some days are darker than others. Some moments are unbearable. But there are spaces between the pain now, small gaps where Neteyam can breathe without feeling like he's drowning. Progress, Kiri calls it. Though she's careful with the word.

His parents know now. Kiri finally told them—had to, she explained quietly one evening, after he came back from the Cove that night. The secret was too heavy to carry alone, especially with Tuk still having nightmares about finding him on the beach, about blood and knives and her brother's hollow eyes.

The revelation went about as badly as he expected.

Neytiri wailed. Actually wailed, the sound tearing through the night like something dying. She'd pulled him into her arms and held on so tight he could barely breathe, sobbing into his hair while her whole body shook. "Ma'itan, Neteyam, why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you—we could have helped, we could have—" But they couldn't have. That's what she doesn't understand. What none of them understand. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, who doesn't believe they deserve to be helped.

Jake didn't wail. Just went very quiet, very still. Stared at him with an expression somewhere between devastation and fury and something that looked almost like understanding from his own struggles with loss and guilt of surviving when others didn't. "We're getting you help," was all he said. Flat and not a request.

He didn't argue, didn't even have the energy for it.

"Help" turns out to be Ronal.

The Tsahìk sits with him every few days, presence calm and unyielding as the ocean itself. She doesn't push, nor demand he talk about things he's not ready to voice. Just sits and offering observations. Asks questions that seem simple but cut to the bone.

"You carry your brother's death like a stone," she says during one session, hands working steadily at some weaving project. "Heavy. Something that will sink you if you're not careful."

He says nothing. Watches her fingers move through the Marui. "But stones can be carried if you learn how. Irrefutably, if you let others help bear the weight."

"I don't want to burden anyone else."

"Too late." Her voice carries the slightest edge of amusement. "You already have. Your sisters carry it. Your parents carry it. The difference is whether you let them help you carry it, or whether you all carry it separately while pretending you're fine."

He thinks about that for a long time after she leaves.

The hallucinations don't stop completely. Lo'ak still appears sometimes, sitting across from him at meals, walking beside him on the beach, standing at the edge of his vision. But something has changed. The vision feels... thinner now. Less substantial. And when it speaks, he can hear the difference between this manufactured voice and the real brother he met in the Spirit Tree. It says things he'd never say. Cruel things. Manipulative things. Things designed to hurt and drag Neteyam down.

"You're not real," he says quietly one evening when the hallucination appears beside him on the beach.

It flickers. "I'm as real as you make me."

"No. You're not Lo'ak. You're just—" He struggles for words. "Just my guilt. My grief. You're what I think I deserve."

It doesn't respond. Just fades slowly until it's gone.

He visits the Spirit Tree more regularly now. Once a week, sometimes twice. Kiri usually comes with him, keeps watch while he connects, makes sure he surfaces safely. The visits are bittersweet. His baby brother is always there: young, always confused about why he's upset, trying to comfort and reassure. The memory doesn't learn, doesn't grow, doesn't understand. It's frozen in that moment of innocence, preserved exactly as it was. But it's real. Really Lo'ak, not the twisted version his grief created. And that matters more than he can express.

"You went again yesterday," Kiri notes one morning.

"Yeah."

"Did it help?"

"Yeah." He pauses. "But I can't live there. I know that."

She nods, relief across her face. "Good. That's… that's good, brother."

Because that's the balance he's learning to find. The Tree offers connection, the chance to see Lo'ak whole and happy. But it's not real life. It's memory, preserved and sacred, but still just memory.

He has to live here. In reality where he is gone and nothing will bring him back.

Tuk still watches him with worried eyes. Still checks on him constantly, still sleeps with her hammock close to his. But slowly, she's starting to relax again.

One morning, when the sky is painted in shades of orange and pink and gold, the ocean calm and glittering in the early light, she appears at his side while he's working on a fishing net, carrying something in her small hands. "Can you teach me?" she asks quietly.

He looks at what she's holding. Shells. A length of cord. The beginnings of a necklace.

"Lo'ak was teaching me," she continues. "Before he…" She can't finish. "But I don't remember how to do the knots. Can you show me?"

Neteyam's throat tightens. Lo'ak had been teaching her. He'd forgotten that. Forgotten how he'd sit with their little sister for hours, patient in a way he never was with anything else.

They sit together in the early morning light, his larger hands guiding her smaller ones through the motions. Loop here. Pull there. Tighten carefully so it holds but doesn't break.

"Like this?" She asks, brow furrowed in concentration.

"Exactly like that. Perfect."

She beams at the praise, and for a moment, he can almost hear Lo'ak's laugh. Not the hallucination's bitter mockery, but the real sound. The bright, genuine laugh his brother used to make when she got something right, when she'd squeal with delight at her own success. She chatters beside him as they work, talking about shells and fish and the other children in the village. Child things. And he listens, really listens, instead of just existing beside her.

The memory should hurt, well, it does. But there's something else there too. Something warm. Remember fondly, he thinks.

She's quiet for a moment. Then, softly: "Do you think he knows? Wherever he is? Do you think he can see us?"

Neteyam thinks about the Spirit Tree. "Yeah, I think he knows."

And maybe that's true. Or maybe it's a comforting lie. But either way, it helps. Helps Tuk. Helps him. Helps them both carry the weight of missing someone who's never coming back.

The physical wound on his wrist is healing. Slowly. The cuts Kiri found him making that night have scabbed over, started to scar. Dark lines against blue skin, visible reminders of how close he came. He doesn't hide them. Doesn't have the energy for it, and besides—everyone knows now. There's no point in pretending. Sometimes people stare, but they look away quickly, uncomfortable with the evidence of his breaking. He tries not to care.

She catches him examining the scars one evening, fingers tracing the lines.

"They'll fade," she says quietly.

"I know."

"But not completely."

"I know that too."

She sits beside him, shoulder pressing against his. "You scared me that night. On the beach."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just—" She stops. Starts again. "Just stay. Okay? However hard it gets. Just stay."

Hey, whatever it is, we'll figure it out together,

Except they can't face this together because Lo'ak is gone. But the principle remains. Neteyam doesn't have to do this alone. Has Kiri and Tuk and his parents and everyone else who keeps trying to help even when he pushes them away.

"I'm going to keep trying," he says. Not a promise. since he's made too many of those he couldn't keep. Just a word of intent. "To carry this without letting it destroy me."

"That's all anyone can ask."

The wound is still there. Both the physical scars on his wrist and the deeper, invisible damage that'll probably never fully heal. The guilt still lives in him, heavy and persistent. The loss still aches with every breath.B ut he's learning to carry it. Learning that carrying it doesn't mean being destroyed by it, but that honoring his memory means living the life his brother wanted for him, not dying the death his grief demanded.

It's hard. Some days he's not sure he can do it. Some days he still thinks about the blade, about the relief of stopping, about how much easier it would be to just give up. But then Tuk will say something, or Kiri will sit beside him, or he'll visit the Spirit Tree and real Lo'ak will hug him and tell him everything will be okay, and he'll find the strength to keep going. Just one more day.

In the end, all energy is borrowed, and one day, you have to give it back.

Surely, it's not necessarily a goodbye, just a see you later.