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When Seze dies, Neytiri does too.
In their tsaheylu, Neytiri feels the shot that hits home in the center of her chest, rupturing vital organs, passing in and out. The bullet carves through her bones and the pain in its wake is greater than anything she has ever felt.. There is no hope of survival, and she knows it even as she screams, her vision blinking out for a moment before she is ripped from Seze's back, their kuru ripped away from each other as Neytiri tumbles through the grass, the world spinniing around her. For a moment, Neytiri hopes that the shot did hit them both, and she will die alongside Seze, if only so she does not have to endure what comes next.
This is not to be.
The day is won, but their losses are many. Seze is another arrow in her back and without her, Neytiri feels trapped, drowning in all they have lost. She cannot aid in the scouting for a new home, she cannot hunt with the best of her ability. Her mother keeps her close, begging for her aid as tsakarem and while Neytiri knows this is to keep her busy, she does not deny Mo'at. She would be useless elsewhere, and that Neytiri cannot abide.
At their celebrations, Neytiri sings and tells stories of shooting down the Sky People's metal birds, describing Jake on toruk and that palulukan when it came to her. She describes the rage of Eywa and she dances while the drums beat.
She cries all her tears in the days after the battle, some in her mother's arms, some in Jake's, and plenty all alone except for the Great Mother. After those few days, Neytiri swears that there is no more time for such things.
She is far from the only warrior to have lost a bonded mount, but she cannot bring herself to go with the other groups that travel into the floating mountains to the rookery. Seze is part of Neytiri's heart, her closest companion as she has grown, and while she will need an ikran, Seze is not replaceable. Ikrans bond only one hunter in their whole life, and Neytiri understands that now. How could there be another? She thinks perhaps she is as the hunting ikrans are, to bond only once and never again. She wishes she could be.
In these grounded days, Neytiri dreams an old dream again, the visions of her Uniltaron come again. She comes faces to face with a massive palulukan over and over, and each time she wakes she thinks of the strength that raced through her while she rode on the back of one during the battle, the two made one by tsaheylu. It was her and she was it and the Great Mother empowered them both. Some part of Neytiri wishes to go into the woods to find that mount again, to never again fly but to be palulukan makto instead. It is foolish, however, to think that the palulukan will bow to her again wtihout the Great Mother's interference. Neytiri cannot risk herself that way.
It seems to make sense now that her Uniltaron had predicted this happening; when Jake had spoken of his own, it had sounded like he had seen toruk. Neytiri does not know why the dream has come again, if the time for it has passed, but she has a sense it is the strength of tsaheylu that the Great Mother wants her to see. Not the palulukan itself, but the bond.
The Great Mother can show her the path, but Neytiri will only walk it when she is prepared.
When Neytiri ascends into Ayram Alusing again, she goes alone, or as much as she can be, for now she knows that a child is growing inside her. When she was girl, it had been her and Arvok, alongside a few other Clanmates their age, watched over by Sylwanin and Tsu'tey. They had laughed the entire climb, confident in themselves. What different times they were; now Neytiri only prays, beseeching the Great Mother for a good future for her child.
When Neytiri reaches the rookery, she scans over the dozens and dozens of ikrans shuffling about on the rocks, the ones flying past. She knew Seze was to be her's when she first saw her, gasping at her beauty. Now, Neytiri may as well see nothing but shades of gray. There is no mount that can be Seze to her; no tsaheylu that will change that. But Neytiri is a warrior, and a warrior rides an ikran to hunt and to fight. Unless she intends to usurp her mother's place sooner rather than later, Neytiri must fly. The Great Mother wills it.
She creeps amongst the nesting ikrans, staying low to the ground with a hand on her knife. She hisses at a few that deign to come too close, too curious. Curious is not what Neytiri wants. All she sees are ikran too small, too hesitant. Seze was a girl's mount; a flower, the jewel of Pandora's sky. Neytiri is a woman now, a warrior, a killer, soon to be a mother, and while the Sky People have left, it may not always be so.
Even if Seze were here, Neytiri does not think Seze would pick her again. Her heart has hardened and her bow has tasted death. Seze would not recognize her now.
Neytiri's eyes land upon an ikran that is larger than Seze was, but the colors and patterns are familiar. She stops where she is, sitting back into a crouch as its shadow falls on her when it sits back on its haunches, eyes as yellow as Seze's.
It is too difficult to say for certain, but all Neytiri can think when she sees this ikran is Sylwanin.
Neytiri does not know what became of Sylwanin's mount when she died, only that the ikran had not been at the school to be shot alongside her sister. Wherever the ikran roamed after that, it did not matter. She was lost, or freed. But this ikran stares at Neytiri now, and she would swear it that it has the eyes her sister loved.
"I know." Neytiri says in a hushed voice. "I know. Why come back here?"
There is a mad thought in Neytiri's mind to take this one as her own. But again, the wisdom is repeated: an ikran only bonds with one hunter. It is more than likely she would be injured or die in the attempt to take an unwilling ikran. And to take her sister's mount would mean Neytiri could not escape Sylwanin's shadow, even now. They had always thought of their mounts as sisters, Neytiri recalls, for Seze and Sylwanin's ikran had looked so similar.
"Is that why?" Neytiri whispers. "We have both lost so much."
But … Sylwanin was not a blooded warrior, not in the way Neytiri is now. She was taken from them before she could truly grow.
No, Neytiri knows, and hisses to ward the ikran off, a rough and angry noise. It flaps it wings and dives into the sky far below. This ikran is not her's.
The pang that hits Neytiri's heart is nearly palpable when another set of glowing eyes catch her's for a moment. The blue and yellow ikran sits back, flaunting her height, and screeches into the sky, the sound echoing.
Neytiri knows instantly that this one is her's, so she lets her instinct take her into a leap before she loses her nerve.
The fight is much harder than it was with Seze, and the ikran draws blood on a long cut along Neytiri's arm. Neytiri yanks back on the cord holding the ikran's mouth closed, knife held between her teeth, as she makes tsaheylu. The ikran calls again, muffled through its tied mouth, and Neytiri wraps her legs around its neck as they tip off the cliffside together.
The wind rushes past them like screams as Neytiri yanks the rope free from the ikran's jaw, whipping it around to wrap over her arm so her hands are free. She reorients on the ikran's back amidst freefall, finding handholds, her mind expanding to meet the ikran's until they are one creature, roiling, fighting, furious.
Together, they right themselves, wings open, and soar across the sky.
The flight is reckless, more than Neytiri would have ever done in her first several months riding Seze, but they are one creature now and they navigate vines and boulders and cliff-faces as if they had flown together for decades. This ikran has tasted blood; Neytiri tastes it on her own tongue, knowing they both killed many Sky People in defense of their home. Seze had been hope and freedom; this ikran, though, is a war mount. Her home has been disturbed, and she has answered the call. In this way, Neytiri knows the two of them are the same. They are angry. They will be, for as long as they live. And at the end of an arrow they will find peace.
As the sky darkens and eclipses come, they perch against a cliffside. Neytiri rests her head against the ikran and their hearts beat together.
"We are one. Where you go, I go." She tells it. "We will kill whoever threatens The People. We will honor our Great Mother. Your strength is mine, and mine is your's."
Seze was Neytiri's flower, blooming from a child's hope. Another flower will not do for this one's name, Neytiri knows.
"Sa'ata," Neytiri vows. Sa to rise to a challenge, ata for light. Flying into the muzzle-flash of the Sky People's terrible metal weapons. In those places, in danger, with bow and knife in hand, will they be one creature of death, vengeance against The People's enemies.
Home, Sa'ata. Neytiri thinks, and they crest through the clouds together.
Neytiri and Sa'ata do not fly to a war for fifteen long years, but when the time comes, Neytiri knows she was led to her mount for a reason.
"Fly fast, fly strong, fly true," She urges Sa'ata when she leaps onto the ikran's back. Sa'ata lunges off the cliff before Neytiri has even completed tsaheylu, for they know each other so completely. Neytiri has flown Sa'ata longer than she flew Seze, but Seze rides with her in her war-paint each time she goes to battle. Neytiri and Sa'ata kill so that others live. So Sylwanin and Tsu'tey, her father, Seze, do not die in vain. With every death the blood splatters their war-paint and Neytiri and Sa'ata do not mourn. Prayer is for beneath the spirit tree, for the night in Jake's arms, for her moments alone. With Sa'ata, Neytiri is a warrior, a soldier, a freedom-fighter. Together, they kill, and they survive.