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Tamtey does not remember the night the sky broke.
They try to, sometimes, the way other children in the facility try to remember the taste of fruit or the shape of a river bend, but whenever Tamtey reaches back far enough, their memories dissolve into warmth and color and a feeling of being held very tightly. It is like reaching into water and watching the image blur away before they can grasp it. The harder they try, the softer it becomes.
They do not remember fire. They do not remember screaming. They do not remember the sound of guns tearing through air.
They remember warmth.
They remember the weight of a body curved around them, heavy and protective.
They remember breath against their hair.
They remember something large and protective and unmovable, something that did not flinch.
When they were very small—so small their legs still wobble when they run—they asked Aha’ri what their mother looked like.
Aha’ri always pauses before answering. Not because she does not know, but because she knows too much. Because memory, for her, still has edges.
“She was strong,” Aha’ri says, the first time.
That is not enough.
“Strong how?”
Aha’ri thinks, then smiles in a way that makes her look older than she is. “Like a mother thanator.”
Tamtey does not know if that is true or if Aha’ri is trying to make the memory bigger, brighter, easier to hold. Tamtey has never seen a thanator in real life. They have seen images in the human data feeds—exaggerated, monstrous things used to explain Pandora’s danger. Teeth bared. Eyes glowing. A creature framed as terror.
But Aha’ri does not describe terror.
“She stood over us,” Aha’ri says quietly once, when the others are asleep and the lights have dimmed to a cold blue. “When the Sky People came. She didn’t move.”
There is something in her voice when she says it. Not fear. Not exactly.
Reverence.
Tamtey does not remember the humans coming.
They remember cold floors pressed against their cheek.
They remember hands that were not gentle lifting them.
They remember being scrubbed until their skin burned and the water ran cloudy around their feet.
They remember a human voice saying the word “abandoned” like it is a fact and not an accusation.
They do not remember being pried from their mother’s arms.
But sometimes, when someone grabs their wrist too suddenly, their entire body reacts like it has been here before. Like something tore them loose before. Like there were fingers they were not ready to let go of.
The TAP facility smells like disinfectant and metal and something underneath that Tamtey cannot name. Something stale. Something trapped. It hums at all hours, a constant low vibration in the walls and floors. The lights never truly go dark. Cameras blink softly in corners like unblinking eyes that never sleep.
They are told they are lucky.
They are told they were rescued.
They are told their clan vanished.
Tamtey does not understand how a whole clan can vanish like nothing. Like smoke blown apart.
Aha’ri does not believe it.
“They didn’t vanish,” she whispers one night to everyone, her voice tight with something sharp and contained. “They were killed.”
Teylan blinks at her in the dim light. “Killed?”
Aha’ri nods. “For us.”
Tamtey doesn’t understand that either. They do not understand how someone can be killed for something and that something still be taken anyway. They do not understand why saving feels like this.
When Tamtey closes their eyes, they sometimes see red behind their eyelids. Not blood exactly. Just a red sky, a red that feels loud. A red that presses in.
They think maybe that is a memory trying to come back.
Mercer visits often.
He smells different from the others. Cleaner. Sharper. Like metal left in sun. Like something that cuts.
He watches them like they are projects. Like they are something that must be corrected. Measured. Adjusted. He tells them their language is primitive. He tells them Eywa is a superstition. He says these things in a patient voice, like he is explaining simple math.
He tells them their mother left them with him because she wanted a better life for them.
Tamtey does not remember their mother’s voice, but they know that sounds wrong.
Because when Mercer says it, something in their stomach twists so violently they feel like they might be sick. Like their body rejects the idea before their mind can.
Aha’ri does not stay quiet. “You lie,” she says, her chin lifted, hands clenched at her sides.
Mercer smiles in a way that is not a smile. It does not reach his eyes. It stretches thin.
Tamtey is four then. Not yet old enough to understand tone, not old enough to understand consequence. Old enough to feel the air change.
They do not realize that Aha’ri is already learning how to die.
They are allowed to keep the songcord in their room. Only in their room.
It hangs from a hook near Tamtey’s bed, simple and worn and beautiful in a way Mercer calls “unsanitary.” The beads are dulled from handling. The fibers slightly frayed.
Tamtey does not remember watching their mother make it. They do not remember the beads being threaded. They do not remember the stories tied into it.
But when they hold it, something inside them feels aligned. Like bones settling into their proper places. Like something lost clicks back in.
Sometimes Aha’ri takes it down and runs her fingers along the strands.
“She made this,” she says softly. “With her own hands.”
Tamtey tries to imagine those hands.
Big. Strong. Clawed like a thanator’s.
No.
They had to be hands that could shield, protect, hold, and soothe. Hands that braided hair. Hands that wiped tears. Hands that pressed over small ears to block out thunder.
Hands that could fight—hands that did fight.
“Was she scared?” Tamtey asks once.
Aha’ri’s jaw tightens. Her fingers still on the cord. “I don’t know.”
It is a lie.
Tamtey knows it even then.
But they are grateful for it.
The first time Mercer tries to take the songcord away, Tamtey is not prepared for how much it hurts. It is not pain like scraped knees or bruised fingers. It is something deeper, something that feels like being untethered from gravity.
He plucks it from their grasp with a look of distaste.
“This is a trinket,” he says. “A tether to something that no longer exists.”
Tamtey’s throat closes. Their fingers curl empty around air.
Before they can move, Aha’ri is there.
She steps between Mercer and Tamtey like a wall, grabbing his arm.
“You said they didn’t want us,” Aha’ri says, her voice shaking but loud. “If that’s true, why are you afraid of this?”
Mercer’s expression changes.
Tamtey does not understand the shift, but they all feel it like a storm rolling in. Like the pressure drop before lightning splits a tree.
He tries to reach around her but Aha’ri doesn’t move.
Tamtey watches her back—straight, defiant, so much bigger than it should be at her age—and something inside them expands painfully with pride. It feels like hope and fear twisted together.
The escape plan is Aha’ri’s.
It has always been Aha’ri’s.
She remembers enough of the forest to crave it. She remembers the wind in her hair. She remembers the taste of rain on her tongue. She remembers the way leaves sound when they are alive.
Tamtey remembers none of it clearly, but they remember the feeling of safety enough to want it back. The feeling of being wrapped in something unbreakable.
They gather at night, whispering beneath the ever-watching cameras, finding blind spots, counting steps between patrols. Their voices are hushed, urgent, fragile.
Tamtey is small. They do not understand all of it. They understand this: Aha’ri wants to go home.
“Will Ma be there?” Tamtey asks once, unable to stop themselves.
Aha’ri hesitates.
Just long enough.
Then she nods.
“Yes,” she says.
Another lie.
Tamtey believes it.
The hallway smells different—not like disinfectant and metal and recycled air, but like something that has slipped in through an open seam. Cool. Damp. Alive. It smells like outside, like possibility.
The outer doors are only meters away, and beyond them is a darkness that does not hum or flicker or buzz. It is real darkness. The kind that holds trees and wind and stars.
Tamtey’s hand is in Aha’ri’s.
Aha’ri’s palm is warm and steady, even though Tamtey can feel the quick pulse in her wrist. Fast. Too fast.
They are humming.
It starts as Aha’ri’s voice alone—soft, low, the Sarentu melody trembling but unbroken. It curls down the corridor like mist, ancient and stubborn. Tamtey joins without thinking. The words feel fragile in their mouth from disuse, but they fit. They always fit. One by one, the others add their voices. Nor. Ri’nela. Even Teylan, shaky and frightened.
The song makes the hallway feel less narrow.
Less owned.
Less like a cage.
They are almost to the door when the lights blaze brighter, harsh and blinding.
Boots thunder around the corner. Right in front of the door.
“We found them.” The voice is sharp, satisfied.
Tamtey’s stomach drops so hard it hurts.
Soldiers flood the corridor like a wall of armor and black glass. And leading them, walking without hurry, is Mercer.
He does not look angry at first.
He looks tired. Annoyed. As if they have inconvenienced him.
“I’m very disappointed in you,” he says, his voice calm in a way that is worse than shouting.
Aha’ri squeezes Tamtey’s hand once, then steps slightly in front of them.
“We belong out there,” she says. Her voice shakes but only a little.
Mercer tilts his head, studying her like she is a malfunctioning machine.
“No,” he says evenly. “You belong to us.”
The words feel wrong in Tamtey’s ears. Belong. Like being owned.
“You cannot fathom,” Mercer continues, taking a slow step forward, “how much we have invested in you. We saved you. We gave you a home. An identity.”
Tamtey feels something twist hard in their chest.
Saved. Home. Identity.
Aha’ri lets go of Tamtey’s hand.
“We already had an identity,” she says, louder now. Braver. “We are Na’vi.”
The word echoes.
Na’vi.
It fills the corridor like a heartbeat.
Something changes in Mercer’s face then. The calm peels back. Something colder shows underneath. “No,” he snaps. “You are what I made you.”
Tamtey hears it, that growl. It reminds them, suddenly and violently, of the thanator in their dreams. Not their mother—no. The hunter. The thing that corners prey and closes its jaws. The thing blasted on the data screens.
Aha’ri lifts her chin.
And she sings.
Not soft this time.
Full.
The Sarentu song rings against steel walls and artificial light, and for a second—just a second—the facility feels small. Temporary. Breakable.
Tamtey sings too. Their throat burns. Tears blur their vision but they keep singing because if they stop, something inside them will collapse completely.
“We are going home,” Aha’ri says, her voice clear. She repeats it in Na’vi, turning slightly so the others can hear.
Home.
Tamtey believed her.
They have always believed her.
Aha’ri steps forward.
Tamtey reaches for her automatically, but Aha’ri is already moving.
Not running away—toward Mercer.
She walks straight at him.
Deliberate.
Purposeful.
She runs into him on purpose—shoulder to shoulder—like she is pushing past a tree trunk that has no right to block her path.
“I’m warning you, Aha’ri,” Mercer says, his voice finally losing its careful control. “Not another step.”
The others are still singing, the melody wavers but does not break.
Tamtey grabs Teylan’s hand with one hand and reaches toward Aha’ri with the other.
Mercer raises the gun.
Tamtey has seen guns before. In lessons. In training rooms. In demonstrations.
They have never seen one pointed at someone they love. They do not understand what it means. They think maybe it is a threat. Maybe he will shout again. Maybe he will shove her back. Maybe adults only pretend to do terrible things.
There is a crack.
It splits the air in half.
The sound is too big for the hallway. Too big for Tamtey’s body. It feels like the world jerking sideways.
Aha’ri jerks.
For one suspended, impossible second, she is still standing.
Then red blooms across her back.
Not memory red and not dream red.
Real.
Spreading.
She falls.
It is not dramatic. Not slow.
It is quick and ugly and wrong.
She hits the floor with a sound Tamtey will hear for the rest of their life.
The singing stops, all at once. The excited murmurs. The hope.
Tamtey stares.
They wait.
They wait for her to move.
For her to groan—to push herself up and glare at Mercer the way she always does.
“Aha’ri,” Tamtey says, softly.
She doesn’t answer.
Tamtey lets go of Teylan and runs.
No one stops them at first because no one expects something so small to move that fast.
They drop to their knees beside her. “Aha’ri,” they say again, louder now.
Her eyes are open but they are looking past the ceiling. Like looking for a sky she will never see again.
“No, no, no,” Tamtey whispers, the words breaking apart in their mouth. “No.”
The other children gather behind them, yelling, frozen, shaking.
Tamtey shakes Aha’ri’s shoulder gently. “You said we’re going home—”
Aha’ri does not blink.
The warmth beneath Tamtey’s hands is already changing.
It is quiet.
So quiet.
Like the forest after something massive has fallen and the birds have not yet decided whether it is safe to sing again.
Hands grab Tamtey from behind.
They scream and thrash and claw, but they are small and the arms are strong. They are dragged backward, away from her, leaving streaks of red across the polished floor.
Mercer steps forward slowly.
He looks down at Aha’ri without expression.
Then he bends and picks up the songcord where it has fallen from Tamtey’s grasp during the struggle.
He turns it in his fingers. Examines it.
Like it is evidence. Like it is nothing.
Tamtey’s throat tears open with a sound that does not feel human.
They reach for it. For her, for anything.
But they are too small.
And Aha’ri does not get back up.
Mercer leaves with the songcord looped around his wrist.
Tamtey stares at it every time he comes near after that because it looks wrong there. Like a trophy. Like teeth worn by a hunter.
After that, the facility feels colder.
Mercer says Aha’ri was unstable.
He says she chose this. He says defiance has consequences.
Tamtey does not speak.
They stop singing. They stop asking questions. They sleep curled tight, as if something might still wrap around them.
Sometimes they dream of a mother thanator laying in a burning clearing.
Her body is pierced with metal, her breath is ragged, but she does not move aside.
Men in hard armor pry her cubs from beneath her chest.
She roars and the sound shakes the trees—her legs will not lift her.
Her cubs are carried away. Stolen.
She watches them go.
She cannot follow.
Tamtey always wakes before the thanator takes its last breath.
They do not want to see that part.
They have seen enough.
Years later, Tamtey will understand what happened at the Circle of Songs.
They will learn about the acid.
About the betrayal. The lies.
About how their mother’s body was dissolved to hide the crime.
They will understand that Aha’ri knew she would probably die when she walked toward that door. They will understand that courage can look like suicide when you are very small and watching from behind.
But when they were five, all Tamtey understood was this: Their sister was the only person who remembered their mother clearly—and now she is gone too.
The memory grew thinner.
More abstract.
Mother becomes shape instead of face. Strength instead of smile. Thanator instead of woman.
But one thing never changes.
When Tamtey closes their eyes and presses their palm to their chest, they still feel it.
Not a voice.
Not a face.
A presence. Two.
Curved around them.
Unyielding.
Loving.
Their mother did not step aside.
Their sister did not step aside.
Tamtey is small but they will survive.
And somewhere, buried deep and patient, something massive sleeps.
And one day, when they are no longer small, it will wake.