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syayäftxeytu 

noun

Etymology: from ‘syay’ (fate) and ‘ftxeytu’ (chosen person)

Meaning: a person with whom one has a unique and deep connection, so wondrous and unexplainable in its intensity it is thought to be written in their paths long before their births; a soulmate.

Neytiri hears her first soulmate story like many Na’vi children before her: curled up in her father’s lap as her mother regales her with a song - one from Sa’nu’s own songcord - that will remain with her for the rest of her days. Now, Sa’nu is tsahìk, interpreter of Eywa’s will, and so it is with a brightness in her eyes that she tells Neytiri of the beloved the Great Mother had blessed her with. 

“Look into the skies, maite,” Sa’nu says, and her father’s fingers find her chin, tilting Neytiri’s head up so she can awe at the scattered stars above, Naranawm peeking over the horizon. “Do you see the stars? Do you see how many there are?”

“Too many to count.” Her father murmurs in her ears, arms warm and steady around her. 

“They are many,” Her mother agrees. “And they are vast. As vast as the Na’vi themselves, scattered across Eywa’eveng as the stars are the skies. And yet, the Great Mother in her love as vast as the skies, grants us kindness. She ties our souls to another, a love so deep, so wonderful.”

“Aysyayäftxeytu!” Neytiri bursts out, practically bursting at the seams with her excitement. 

“Neytiri.” Sìlwanìn groans, curled into their father’s side. “Do not interrupt!”

Neytiri sticks her tongue out at her sister, ducking her head at her father’s admonishing look. 

“Carry on, Sa’nu.” Sìlwanìn says, leaning forward with eagerness, though she has undoubtedly heard these tales before. Neytiri’s sister is six years her elder, a fact she never fails to hold over her baby sister’s head, yet she never seems to tire of this story. 

“Yes, maite.” Sa’nu says, eyes warm, bright like little suns in the glow of the firelight. “Aysyayäftxeytu. Our great blessings from Eywa, a person whose life-line is woven with ours by her hands. But how ever will we find them, with clans in the forests and the oceans, the tundras and the deserts?”

“Our hands!” Neytiri grins, holding her own out, spreading the fingers wide. 

“Our hands.” Sempu agrees, her hands comically small in his, scarred and rough with years of life, yet so gentle as they cradled hers. “As we hold our aysyayäftxeytu for the first time, our skin meeting theirs, a mark is left behind. A reminder of someone so precious and beloved.”

“But Sempu,” Neytiri begins, taking her father’s hand in her own, where his yellow (joy, unadulterated and fervent) soulmark spills over his blue skin. She traces the edge of it, the four lines that make out four fingers, the way it curls into her father’s palm and spills slightly between the gaps of his fingers: a memory of a hand in his, dragging him to whatever adventure awaited them. “Why would you need a reminder? They’re your syayäftxeytu - you can’t forget them!”

“Brave words,” Sa’nu says, sitting on Sempu’s other side, her chin resting on his shoulder. “For a syaksyuktsyíp who forgot where she left her beads and spent all morning looking for them.”

Neytiri’s cheeks heat at the reminder, even as she pouts at her mother. “But Sa’nu this is different!” She whines. “A syayäftxeytu isn’t a bead or a feather. You just said they are the most important people in your life!”

“Did I?” Sa’nu asks, ear flicked up, head tilted. 

Neytiri nods. “Yes, you just did!” She turns to her sister. “Sìlwanìn, she did, yes?”

“Hmm, that is not how I remember it.” Her sister says, acting wise, as though her ten years of life have given her some untold wisdom Neytiri does not possess at a whole four years old. “She said they are our beloved, chosen by Eywa.”

“So most important!” Neytiri argues, exasperated. 

“The people you love cannot be argued as more or less important, maite.” Sempu says. “Your syayäftxeytu is much the same.”

“Some people you love with every fiber of your body, of your soul,” Sa’nu says, looking at Sempu with soft eyes. Sa’nu’s markings are on her back, the smudged impression of hands that had held her close in affection, pink and small, not much bigger than Neytiri’s own hands. “And yet, sometimes they do not walk the same paths as you. It is nice to have that reminder, of their love, on the days when you feel far from them.”

Neytiri’s ears droop. “But I don’t want to be far from them! That is sad.”

Sa’nu laughs, and Sempu’s lips are warm as he presses a kiss to her cheek. 

“Sometimes.” He agrees, and she does not realize it then, but as she grows and looks back on these memories, Neytiri will see and understand the wistful glint to his eyes, the love. “But it is worth it. Wouldn’t you agree, my love?”

Sa’nu smiles, nose pressed to Sempu’s neck. “Yes, my heart.”

For the first few years of her life, Neytiri simply assumes her parents are each other’s syayäftxeytu. It makes sense to her, the way they fit together with an ease she can never hope to understand. 

They are not, and when she meets their aysyayäftxeytu, Neytiri begins to See the unique bond between such chosen ones. 

Sa’nu’s syayäftxeytu is a messenger of the Kekunan, and they met in the talioang hunts many years ago, long before even Sìlwanìn had been born. Lawtu is a wide-smiled woman, with broad shoulders and sun-bright eyes who sweeps her mother into an embrace, unheeding of Sa’nu’s protests about decorum. Her hands, weathered by her years and calloused with her work, should not fit onto the handprints on her mother’s back - and yet they do, unperfect and perfect in the same breath. 

Lawtu grins bright as Sìlwanìn barrels into her arms, her expression softening as she kneels to meet Neytiri’s shy eyes. 

“Oel ngati kameie, ma Neytiri,” She says, voice deeper than her mother’s, rougher, yet so sweet. “It is lovely to meet you at long last.”

“Oel ngati kameie, ma Lawtu,” Neytiri says, returning the greeting at her father’s gentle prompting. 

Still, her mind and eyes alike are fixed upon the yellow-pink spread across Lawtu’s shoulders, and she finds herself thinking of her mother, smaller - perhaps as small as Neytiri is now - slinging her arm around Lawtu’s equally-narrow shoulders, watching the colour bloom across her skin.

“Ah, a quiet one.” Lawtu says, returning to her full height, when it becomes obvious Neytiri is too shy to carry on the conversation. She places her hands on her hips, head tilted teasingly as she says, “Took after her father, then?”

Sa’nu rolls her eyes, but even Neytiri can see the affection clear as day in her eyes. 

Her mother is filled with a different type of elation, during those days of the hunt. Not more than she is normally, or better but different, nonetheless.

Neytiri thinks she is beginning to understand.

Neytiri meets Sempu's syayäftxeytu long before she knows she has. 

In her defense, they are nothing like Sa’nu and Lawtu. 

Sa’nu and Lawtu are boundless with their affection, their marks worn with pride as unbidden as their love. It takes a single glance for her - for anyone, really - to understand their connection, their bond, touched by the Great Mother. Neytiri loses count of the hours her mother spends in conversation with her soulmate, remembers waking in her mother’s lap to Sa’nu’s brilliant laughter, tears in her eyes as she and Lawtu reminisce on whatever childhood adventure they are recounting that day. 

Sempu adores her - not the same way Sa’nu does - and Sìlwanìn, who has met her many times before, loves to spend the early morning hours on ikran-back. As a messenger and traveller, Lawtu is one of the best fliers of her clan; an impressive feat, considering the Kekunan are known best for their fliers. 

She takes Neytiri, one day, after Neytiri’s shyness could not hold her curiosity any longer. Lawtu beams at her request, and, after a quick check in with her parents, Neytiri finds herself waking before the sun, blinking past the sleep lingering in her eyes. 

“Listen to Lawtu,” Sa’nu reminds her for the umpteenth time. “Just as you would for father or I.”

Neytiri, with all the wisdom and foolhardy confidence of her four years, rolls her eyes. “I will, Sa’nu, do not worry!”

Still, Sa’nu’s worry only lessens with Lawtu’s reassurance, “I will take care of her, my friend.”

Lawtu flies them high, higher than Neytiri can ever remember going with her parents. Eywa’eveng stretches wide and glorious before her, and Neytiri wishes for many eyes like ‘angstik so she could drink in more of the beauty surrounding her. Honey-warm light cascades over the horizon, dark blues bleeding into brilliant reds that fade to orange and yellow. 

“Worth the early rise?” Lawtu laughs, hands steady around her. 

“Yes!” Neytiri exclaims, grinning. She cannot tear her eyes from the sight. “It is so pretty, Lawtu!”

“Are you ready for the fun part, little one?”

“Huh?”

Lawtu grins, passing her a small ionar that fits perfectly at her brow. 

“Hold on tight!” 

Neytiri has a moment to do as she’s told, little fingers right on Lawtu’s arm before the ikran swoops up and then down. Her stomach hollows, and she is certain she is screaming even if a smile breaks her face, all teeth and cold wings against her face, Lawtu’s laughter in her ears  

They weave through the sky, Lawtu and Ínäl like two halves of a complementary whole. 

The second they land, Sa’nu and Sempu awaiting them, a Neytiri twists in Lawtu’s arms and turns to wrap her arms around her waist. 

“That was amazing!” Neytiri beams at the laughter that rumbles under her ears, the hands at her back. She draws back, eyes pleading, “Can we go again?”

“It’s my turn!” Sìlwanìn protests. She clambers on behind Lawtu, pouting though she’d deny it. 

Neytiri turns to her parents, complaints on her lips. She finds them smiling, their hands together as they share a look that holds more weight than words ever could. 

She and Sìlwanìn got many more rides after that and, with her trepidation now wholly gone, Neytiri found herself with another friend. 

Lawtu is brave and bright and brilliant, all warm-smiles and Neytiri’s favourite dried fruits snuck to her when her mother’s back is turned, a new necklace made just for her, the weaving of the Kekunan standing out against her Omatikaya weaves. The day the Great Hunt finishes, the day the Kekunan and the Anurai need to return to their respective Kelutral, Sa’nu wraps her arms around her soulmate tight and does not let go for a very long time. 

So, Neytiri thinks she knows soulmates and all that they entail pretty well after that. She keeps an eye out, after that, for the Na’vi who inspires such joy in Sempu’s eyes, that vibrancy of life. After a few weeks without any realizations, she bores of her investigation and decides to go to the source. 

“Sempu,” She starts, hands on her hip wearing what her sister would describe as her ‘I’m about to do something stupid’ look. 

Sempu looks at her, amused. “Yes, maite?”

“When can I meet your soulmate?”

A beat of silence.

Then Sìlwanìn curls over herself, peals of laughter echoing around their swaynivi. Around them their neighbours shoot them strange looks, though Sìlwanìn does not seem to care as she laughs and laughs and laughs. Neytiri feels her cheeks heat and, vindictively, hopes her sister chokes in her laughter. 

“What?” She asks, and now her father is shaking his head at her as well. 

“Silly child.” He says, fond. “You have already met her.”

He says this simply, as though it were an everyday fact and not a rewriting of all of Neytiri’s hypotheses. 

Neytiri gawks at him. “When?” She splutters.

It is hardly her fault she cannot tell that Artsut was her father’s syayäftxeytu. 

Neytiri decides when she is four that she wants a soulmate romance for the Great Songs. Her parents laugh good-naturedly at her, as does anyone she tells, but she’s certain of it. She will have a mate whom she will love so much and their love will be sung in the Great Songs many generations from now, no matter how much Sìlwanìn calls her foolish for believing so. 

(Later, when she is much older and wiser, she will reminisce back on these wishes and think, I was not wrong, not entirely.)

Her declaration is prompted by the recent betrothal of two Na’vi of the clan: a hunter, just turned nineteen, named Rama and a healer from the Kekunan called Tseyta. They had discovered they were soulmates during the talioang hunt a few years ago and fallen deeply in love with each hunt. Vaguely Neytiri remembers Rama visiting her father, to ask for his blessing so she could go live with the Kekunan for a while, before she asked for Tseyta’s hand. 

Except, if rumour was to be believed, it hadn’t turned out that simple. Neytiri hadn’t thought twice about two women being together - she’d met plenty of couples in the clan like that, even a trio once between two men and a woman. It was a startling thought that some Na’vi thought it weird or offputting. Unnatural, had been the word in the rumours, the words that Tseyta’s mother had supposedly spat in the face of her daughter’s love. They refused to give her their blessing. 

It should have been the end, really. But Tseyta and Rama proved braver than anyone had imagined, for it was two ikran that returned to the Omatikaya many moons after Rama left. Neytiri hadn’t been there for the conversation they’d had with her parents, but Sìlwanìn and Tsu’tey had told her tale a few days later.

“Tseyta asked for uturu.” Tsu’tey says. “She said she did not care to stay within the same clan as parents who would hate her for who she is.”

“Such horrible people.” Sìlwanìn spits, scowling. “To push away your own daughter.”

“Why didn’t she go to the olo’eyktan or the tsahìk?” Neytiri asks. 

“I think she didn’t want to make a large issue of it.” Tsu’tey says. His nose scrunches up. “I wouldn’t want everyone gossiping about it.”

“And what could the olo’eyktan or tsahìk do?” Sìlwanìn counters. “They have already given their blessing for their union. They could not force Tseyta’s family to do the same.”

“But she’s had to leave everyone she knows.” Neytiri frowns, heart sinking at the very thought of losing everyone she loved for something she couldn’t control. “No one in her family came after her?”

“There was talk of an older brother.” Tsu’tey says. “But he wasn’t there when this happened.”

“He was a messenger, I think.” Sìlwanìn says. “Like Lawtu.”

“It’s very sweet.” Neytiri says. “That they love each other so much.”

She’d decided then and there that she wanted a love like that for herself: unyielding in the face of hardship and always, always willing to stand by her. 

Neytiri doesn’t have a first memory of Artsut. She is simply always there, just as her parents and sister always have been. In hindsight, that should have been a clue to the bond Artsut had with her family. 

She is a warrior and huntress both, powerful and fierce. Neytiri sees her most often in her father’s meetings with the council of elders, or the hunting parties. She is an imposing woman. Neytiri knows her own parents can be rather intimidating - she could count the number of times her father had yelled on one hand, the first being at a young hunter who’d been stupid enough to lead himself and his friends to a palulukan’s nest in the middle of the night, and she decided then and there that she would prefer to keep it that way - and that they both hold great prestige amongst the clan. Artsut is much the same, reminding Neytiri of Sempu.

Another clue, slipping between her fingers. Later she would learn that Artsut had been a potential heir for Olo’eyktan, but had been overlooked in favour of Sempu. Neytiri’s grandmother - Sa’nu’s mother - had chosen Sempu for his bond and love with Sa’nu, claiming a united Olo’eyktan and Tsahik would allow the clan to prosper in a way a segregated one would not. 

It was not that Sa’nu and Artsut were not friends - Artsut had been the one to introduce Sa’nu and Sempu in the first place - but Sa’nu and Sempu loved each other, a love that bled from them to the clan. 

Sempu always said that Artsut had never begrudged him for it, for being chosen when she wasn’t for the sole fact that she could not love Sa’nu as he did. Still, Neytiri found it strange that Artsut was not as present a figure in her life the way she’d expected her father’s soulmate to be.  

When she’d asked after why this was, her mother had shrugged, non-committedly. 

“Every relationship is different, maite. Artsut has always liked her privacy and her love has never been bold. It is simply the way she is.”

Later, during one of their adventures in the forest, Sìlwanìn shares: “I think Sempu and Artsut had a fight and that’s why she doesn’t come around much. Not like Lawtu.”

Neytiri’s nose wrinkles. “What were they fighting about?” 

Sìlwanìn shrugs one shoulder. “No one will tell me.”

Neytiri meets her soulmate the day her father reunites with his. 

Reunite isn’t perhaps the right word - after all, Artsut had never left the Omatikaya - but it is the only one that fits the strange dinner they share with Artsut and her family one night. 

Artsut’s severe face softens slightly as she looks at Neytiri and Sìlwanìn, and she kneels just like Lawtu when she greets them. 

It feels too formal for a woman she has known her whole life - though part of Neytiri questions whether she truly knows her - but Neytiri curls her fingers to her forehead. “Oel ngati kameie, ma Artsut.”

“Well said.” Artsut nods, the flash of a smile at her lips. She peers up at Sempu, whose leg Neytiri is half-hiding behind, and there is a teasing lilt to her voice as she says, “She reminds me of another little boy half-hidden behind his mother’s legs, hmm?”

A tension she hadn’t realized was present drops from Sempu’s shoulders as he smiles at Artsut, hand on her shoulder as he says, “Perhaps it is your face that we hide from.”

“What are you implying there?”

Sempu shrugs, grin playing at his lips at Artsut’s narrowed eyes. “Nothing at all, my friend.”

Artsut rolls her eyes, but Neytiri thinks it’s fond. She hopes it is.

“Hello?” Sìlwanìn is saying. There is a young boy, closer to Sìlwanìn’s age than Neytiri’s, who is hidden behind his father’s leg, peering out at them with wide eyes. He’s vaguely familiar, a face she has seen in the clan but not one she can connect to a name. Something beginning with ‘T’?

Artsut’s mate - Ateyo - places a gentle hand on his son’s head, leaning down to whisper something into his ears. The boy shakes his head, sharp, eyes wary as he looks at them.

“I see Neytiri is not the only one who is shy tonight.” Sempu says. 

“It seems your firstborn takes after your husband, Artsut.” Sa’nu says. 

An unreadable emotion flickers through Artsut’s eyes at that, smothered before Neytiri can see it properly. 

She steps to her son’s side, kneels by him. Her hand is on his shoulder, pushing him forward, gentle but insistent. She murmurs something in his ear, too quick to pick up, and the boy’s spine straightens, lips pursed in what Neytiri assumes is meant to be bravery. It does little to hide the flame-bright anxiety in his eyes. 

(Unbeknownst to her, Mo’at and Eytukan share a look above the children’s heads, worried, though they cannot discern why. Not at that moment, at least.)

“Hi!” Neytiri chirps at him, grinning. 

“Hello.” He says, quietly, eyes darting up to his mother before he says, louder, “Oel ngati kameie, ma Neytiri, ma Sìlwanìn. My name is Tsu’tey.”

“Oel ngati kameie, ma Tsu’tey.” Sìlwanìn smiles. She turns to Sa’nu. “Ma Sa’nu, can we go pay? Just for a little bit we’ll be back before dinner, I promise!”

Neytiri pouts immediately. “No, that’s not fair!”

It’s dusk now, and while Sìlwanìn and Tsu’tey - who seems to be around her age, or perhaps a year younger - would be allowed to play, Neytiri was considered still too little to be traversing the forest without an adult to look after her. 

“We can play here.” Tsu’tey offers a small smile curving his lips when Neytiri beams at him. 

“Neytiri only likes to play with her animal toys!” Sìlwanìn groans. “She’s still a baby.”

“Hey!” Neytiri says. “I am not!”

“You are!”

“No, I’m not!” She says, stomping her feet. She turns to Tsu’tey. “I’m not a baby, am I, ma Tsu’tey?”

“Uh…” Tsu’tey’s eyes ricochet from her to Sìlwanìn, nose wrinkling slightly as he catches sight of their parents’ amused expressions from where they’d begun preparing dinner at the cookfire. “Well, no, you aren’t?”

Neytiri grins, sticking her tongue out at her sister. “See, Tsu’tey agrees with me!”

“Maybe I should tell Tsu’tey about this morning,” Sìlwanìn threatens, “When you lost your carved pa’li and cried like a baby!”

Neytiri’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “You would cry too!”

“Would not.”

“Would too!”

“Not this again.” Tsu’tey muttered, rolling his eyes in a motion that made him look the mirror of Artsut. “What game are we playing?”

A devious look came across Sìlwanìn’s face and Neytiri immediately knew what was on her mind. “Let’s play ‘angstik and syaksyuk!” She grinned, fangs flashing. “I’m the ‘angstik!”

Neytiri ran. 

Tsu’tey, who was unaccustomed to her sister’s insanity, made the foolish mistake of freezing for the briefest of seconds. More than enough time for Sìlwanìn to start racing at him.

“Run, ma Tsu’tey!” Neytiri yelled behind her. Tsu’tey was quick to heed her advice, running quickly and missing Sìlwanìn’s hands by a hair’s breadth. “Get in under the roots! Sìlwanìn’s too big for them now!”

“Hey!” Sìlwanìn yelled, as Tsu’tey did as told, scrambling under the roots. He was just small enough to fit under them. Sìlwanìn, who had been gloating about the extra few inches she’d gained just that morning, scowled at him. Then she turned her attention to Neytiri, who was much too far from the roots to do much hiding. “Come here!”

And then she charged towards her. 

“Ah!” Neytiri screamed, pumping her little legs as fast as she could. But Sìlwanìn had the advantage of age and height, and was quickly catching up to her, no matter how much she zig-zagged and raced, ducking behind rocks and fallen trees. 

She stayed far from the cookfires, knowing that her parents didn’t like her running around the flames and she wanted to keep playing. Sìlwanìn kept her running between the rocks and the clearing, far from the trees where she could climb to safety. It was her favourite strategy and one Neytiri had never won against. 

“Neytiri!”

She glanced back. Tsu’tey was in the trees, hanging from them by his legs with both hands outstretched towards her. Sìlwanìn saw him too and ran faster towards Neytiri. 

“Tsu’tey!” Neytiri yelled, running to him. “Tsu’tey I can’t reach!”

“Jump!” He yelled. “I’ll catch you!”

Neytiri had never jumped that high, even if it was a relatively low branch he was hanging from. 

“I’m going to catch you, little sister!” Sìlwanìn called from behind her, voice close. 

“But-” Neytiri began, only to be cut off by Tsu’tey’s, “You can do it! Come on!”

So she jumped. 

For a few moments she was free and she was flying, the wind on her face and her braids, the ground far beneath her feet. Then her stomach swooped as the moment ended and she was subjected to gravity’s whims once more. She reached out for the blue hands stretched towards her. 

Her left hand missed completely and she could already picture Sìlwanìn’s preening as she won another round of the game. 

Warmth at her right forearm, fingers around her arm swinging her up. Hands at her shoulders to help her scramble the last few steps to the branch, at her back to steady her when she nearly fell from imbalance. The nails on both her hands stung from the strength with which she grasped the tree branch. 

She meets Tsu’tey’s eyes, wide gold on wider amber. Their chests heave and Neytiri doesn’t believe it for a second. Then she giggles and he chuckles and then they’re both half-delirious with leftover adrenaline and lack of oxygen from their raucous laughter. 

“Aw, come on!” Sìlwanìn’s dejected voice sounded from below. “That’s so not fair!”

“And targeting someone half your size is?” Tsu’tey calls back to her, grinning. 

It is the brightest expression Neytiri has seen on his face, unfettered and brilliant, like the full moon after a storm-drunk night. She feels something slot into place in her heart, letting it grow bigger than she had thought possible. 

Not sure what she can do with the sudden elation filling her from soles of her feet to the crown of her head, Neytiri does what she can: she tackles him in a hug. 

He yelps at the movement, and they both scramble at the edge for their balance, Tsu’tey impeded somewhat by her small arms wrapped tightly around his body. 

“Neytiri, what-”

“We’re going to be the bestest friends ever!” Neytiri squealed, hugging him tighter. She peered up at his face, and laughed at the wide-eyed look he gave her. “What?”

“Neytiri…” A smile grew on his lips, hesitant and then all at once. “Neytiri, look!” 

Her hand was painted with yellow (joy and elation and happiness, so simple and yet so cherished) that swirled with white (trust and connection, a gift that was to be cradled with kind hands), a great strokes of the colours washed over the inside of her forearm and her palm. Near her elbow it branched out into four fingers that wrapped around her arm, holding her close. In the periphery of her vision, she catches a glimpse of where Tsu’tey’s other hand had landed on her shoulder to steady her, the brush of colour across her shoulder. 

Tsu’tey’s hands are filled with colour, their shared yellow and his orange (excitement and elation, an inner energy given to another) pooling in the hollow of his palm and spilling out. But that is only one marking, from where he had grabbed her to pull her up. Where was-?

She grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him forward so she could see the yellow-orange of her four-fingered hand spilling across his back where she’d pulled him into an embrace. A memory of her joy forever imprinted on his skin. 

“You are happy?” He asks, wry, even if he is as excited as she is at the revelation. 

“Ma oeyä syayäftxeytu!” She squeals before tacking him into another embrace, delighting in the feel of his laughter against her chest. 

“What?” Sìlwanìn yells from below.

Sawtute have aysyayäftxeytu too. They find them through marks on their skin, and speak through painted lines on their arms. 

Neytiri is fascinated by them, when Grace first teaches them about them. She has always loved the stories told by her clan, and she is always looking for more wherever she can find them. 

“That is amazing!” Neytiri says, when one of her human teachers humours her and writes on his arm. A few moments later, his syayäftxeytu writes back. “Sìlwanìn, come look!”

But her sister is not behind her as she thought she was. Instead Sìlwanìn is in a quiet conversation with Grace, something heavy in her eyes. Neytiri feels her smile fade and she intends to make her way to her sister, to demand what is worrying her so, when Tsu’tey steps between them, turning her back to their teacher. 

“It is good that Na'vi are not the same.” Tsu’tey says with a roll of his eyes. “You are annoying as is. I could not imagine being unable to escape your chatter.”

Neytiri protests loudly, and by the time she looks back, her sister is gone, Grace with her. 

Her sister is hiding something. Her sister is hiding something and her parents are hiding something and Neytiri will explode if they keep pretending that they are not.

“Let them have their secrets, ma Neytiri.” Tsu’tey tells her when she complains to him. “They will tell you when they are ready.”

“It’s not fair!” Neytiri says, hands thrown in the air. “I’m old enough to handle whatever they throw at me.”

“Yes, you are a very wise ten year old.”

She slaps her syayäftxeytu on the head, and scuttles away before he can retaliate. 

“What happened?” Neytiri gasps, hurrying over to Tsu’tey’s side as he limps in, Sìlwanìn scowling beside him. “Tsu’tey? Tsu’tey, are you okay?”

“I am okay, Neytiri.” He says, forcing a smile to his lips for her. Tears dry on his cheeks and Neytiri winces at the swelling at his ankle. 

“You are not fine.” Sìlwanìn spits, and Neytiri flinches with Tsu’tey, unfamiliar with her sister’s biting wrath. 

Neytiri settles him down and says, “I will get your parents-”

“No!” Tsu’tey bursts out, almost leaping to his feet and crumpling immediately after. 

“Tsu’tey!” 

Neytiri scrambles to his side, Sìlwanìn on the other and together they make him sit. 

“Don’t tell my mother.” He says, begs. 

Neytiri frowns, confused; if she had sprained her ankle, there’s nothing more that she’d want than her parents’ comfort. 

“Neytiri,” Sìlwanìn says, before Neytiri can voice her thoughts. “Go get some paywll leaves, we have run out.”

She shot to her feet, nodding. The paywll leaves are easy to find and she grabs a few pods as well, knowing they were good for healing. She gathers as much as she can carry, unheeding to the people around her in her rush to get back to her injured syayäftxeytu. 

When she gets back, she pauses at the entrance to the healing alcove, fingers hovering over the beaded entrance. 

“...okay, Sìlwanìn.” Tsu’tey is saying, voice weary as though he has already explained this a thousand times. 

“She cannot treat you like this!” Her sister hisses, and Neytiri knows she will be pacing angrily, tail whipping behind her. “What mother makes her child afraid of making mistakes?”

“I was a skxawng to fall from-”

“It does not matter how foolish your mistakes are when you are hurt, Tsu’tey! She should care about that more, about you!”

“She does! She knows of my potential-”

Sìlwanìn scoffs, a bitter, cruel sound. “So that gives her permission to push you beyond your limits?”

“She wants me to be the best I can be.”

“A dead boy is dead in the end, no matter how perfect he was in life.” A breeze shakes the beaded entrance, giving Neytiri a glimpse of the scene inside: Sìlwanìn cradling Tsu’tey’s face in her hands, with a reverence and tenderness Neytiri had never seen before. “I just don’t like to see you hurt.”

There is a bone-deep fondness in Tsu’tey’s eyes as he looks up at her sister.

Neytiri bursts in. “I got the leaves!”

Her sister and syayäftxeytu scramble apart. 

“Good.” Sìlwanìn says, coughing as though that would hide the flush to her cheeks. 

Neytiri, feeling merciful, doesn’t comment on it. Instead she lifts Tsu’tey’s arm and huddles close to his side, burying her face in his stomach. 

“Neytiri?” He asks, even as his arm comes around to hold her close. 

“You are the best syayäftxeytu ever, Tsu’tey.” She says. She squeezes him tighter. “Bestest syayäftxeytu ever.”

A pause. Then a light pressure on the crown of her head, a kiss to her braids. 

“That is impossible.” He says, teasing. “The best syayäftxeytu ever is curled up like a nantang cub in my arms.”

“Second best, then.” She declares, delighting in the laugh it pulls from his lips. 

“My syayäftxeytu is a human.” Her sister says, without preamble, a few days later. 

Neytiri blinks at her. Let the thought through her mind, and, when it doesn’t make sense, blinks again.

Her sister, surprisingly patient, waits. 

“What?” Neytiri asks. “How?”

“I don’t know.” Sìlwanìn sighs. She rubs her face and Neytiri doesn’t know how to comfort her, whether it is comfort she wants. After all, her soulmate was her best friend. “I don’t know.”

“How long have you known?” Neytiri asks, even if a different question burns at her tongue. 

“Almost a year.” Sìlwanìn admits and Neytiri’s eyes widen. “I was not certain, but after Kìreysì’s lessons on sawtute soulmates there was no point in denying it.”

“So you told Sa’nu?”

Aysyayäftxeytu was Eywa’s gift, after all, and Sa’nu was interpreter of Her will. If there was anyone who was able to try and understand how a Na’vi had a human syayäftxeytu then it was her. 

Sìlwanìn winced. “Not at first. I kept it to myself.”

“Sìlwanìn!” Neytiri said, admonishing. 

“Don’t chastise me. Sempu and Sa’nu have done it enough.” She muttered. Sìlwanìn shook her head. “I wanted to understand him first. Who he was, what he was like. I spent so much time with Kìreysì learning letters so I could write to him, to understand him.”

“How long has he been writing to you?” Neytiri asked. 

“I think it started four years ago?” Sìlwanìn’s nose scrunched up. Neytiri did the maths in her head: humans could start writing to their soulmate at eighteen years of age, whilst their markings were something born with them, so he’d be twenty-two now. She thought of the strange birthmark on Sìlwanìn’s shoulder, another puzzle piece slotting into place.  “Before we learnt about them at school, anyway. I thought it was just a strange thing that happened to me. Sa’nu couldn’t explain it either, and after a while he just…stopped.”

Neytiri frowned. “He gave up?”

“I cannot blame him. I could not reply to him, did not know how to.” Sìlwanìn explains. Neytiri looks at the armguards on her sister’s arms, the ones she vaguely recalls Sìlwanìn beginning to wear more often around a year ago. Around the time Kìreysì had taught them about sawtute soulmates. 

“Is he…do you know him?” Neytiri asks, hopeful. 

Sìlwanìn’s face falls. “He is not here.” She looks up, searching for the star that was the humans’ homeplanet. “Not yet. He promised me he would come here, but…”

But it was unlikely. Kìreysì said there were only a few humans who were allowed to travel the stars, that it was a rare chance only the best of the best got. What were the chances that of all the many, many humans on their planet, Sìlwanìn’s syayäftxeytu would be one of those precious few?

“He will.” Neytiri said firmly, trying to convince her sister to see the smile on her face again. “He will come here and I will get a new brother and you can teach him how to hold a bow and Tsu’tey can pretend not to like him. He will come, ma tsmuke, I know he will.”

Sìlwanìn huffed, swinging her arm around Neytiri’s shoulders. She ruffles Neytiri’s braids, even though she knows Neytiri hates it, and says, “My optimistic little sister.”

Neytiri huffs at the affection, as little sisters are prone to do, but preens at the smile on her sister’s face.

“What is his name?” Neytiri whispers later that night, curled up in her sister’s arms. Their parents lie in a slumber's embrace a little way away. 

Sìlwanìn’s arms tighten briefly around her and she hesitates. Eventually, though, she caves. 

“Tommy.” She murmurs, her syayäftxeytu’s name, one of the few things she has of him, separated by light years as they are. “His name is Tommy.”

Sìlwanìn is not the only Na’vi with a human syayäftxeytu. 

“Is that-?” Tsu’tey slaps a hand over her mouth before she can finish the question. 

They both duck into the bushes, trying to be subtle as they watch Sìvika and Vahia blatantly flirt behind the school. Sìvika is a teacher at the school, an uniltiranyu that is close friends with Grace, and Vahia is one of the newer members of the clan, the older brother of Tseyta.

The startling pink (amusement and humour, laughter shared) and grey (nervous, worry, the trepidation of meeting someone unknown) washes across Vahia’s arm and shoulder, turquoise (curiosity, a little wonder, a little awe) and blue (trust and hope and the start of the new) half-blending in with Sìvika’s blue face. The colour hadn’t transferred to her human body - Neytiri definitely would have noticed sooner if her teacher had a blue, four-fingered handprint across her face - but the human mark on Sìvika’s leg had. 

“I thought it was strange how much time he spent here.” Tsu’tey muttered beside her. 

Neytiri stifled her giggles. “I think it is cute.”

He shoots her a disgusted look, glancing at Sìvika and Vahia kissing in front of them. “Really?”

But Neytiri had a different idea, thinking of the song one of the humans had sung when a pair of human soulmates had discovered their bond. 

“Vahia and Sìvika sitting in a tree!” She yelled, unheeding of Tsu’tey’s attempts to pull her back. Both adults split apart, cheeks flushing with colour. She giggles at the expressions, “K-I-S-S-!”

“Come here, ma syaksyuktsìp!” Sìvika laughs as she lunges forward. 

“Tsu’tey, help me!” Neytiri yells. 

Traitor of a syayäftxeytu that he is, Tsu’tey stands there and watches as she’s caught and tickled until she cannot breathe. 

“Congratulations.” She hears him tell Vahia when Sìvika gives her some reprieve. “I hope she is less insane than my syayäftxeytu.”

“One can only hope.” Vahia chuckles. “Thank you, Tsu’tey.”

“Tell him he is a skxawng.” Tsu’tey says, peering over Sìlwanìn’s shoulder, Neytiri on the other side as she writes. “What fool trips and breaks his leg?”

“He fell.” Sìlwanìn reminds him, even as she carefully writes out her response to her syayäftxeytu’s writings. Neytiri’s reading and writing has never been as good as her sister’s - she lacks practice - so she’s unable to make out the words before they’re scrubbed off again so her sister can carry on the conversation. 

“That is exactly what I said, is it not?”

Sìlwanìn allows Neytiri to write one message to her syayäftxeytu. Apparently, this is rather scandalous to most humans, since they think only aysyayäftxeytu can write to one another. Sìlwanìn seems to understand this, on some level because she never lets anyone see her writings and never allows anyone to write to him, but Neytiri has always been an exception to most of her rules. 

She isn’t a good writer, and she isn’t sure what she’d say, anyway, to a man so far away. She draws a flower, remembering Sìlwanìn telling her that he likes learning about flowers and plants, that he is a scientist like Kìreysì but he studies plants, like a healer. 

“He says it is beautiful.” Sìlwanìn says, when she gets a response. “Do not grin, he is being nice. A blind palulukan could do better.”

“Hey!”

“Neytiri, Neytiri,” Sìlwanìn grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet with joy. “Neytiri, he is coming! He did it!”

“What?” Realisation dawns a moment later and she grins. Neytiri wraps her arms around her sister. “That is wonderful!”

“He is coming.” Sìlwanìn says, and it is the first glimpse of happiness Neytiri has seen on her sister’s face in many months. “He is coming, I will be able to see him. I will be able to See him.”

It was all going so well. It should have been her first sign of the carnage yet to come. 

“They are burning the forest.” Neytiri sobs, Tsu’tey’s arms tight around her. “They’re ruining it!”

Tsu’tey’s arms are tight around her, and when she peers up at him, she can see the enraged rictus carved into his face. 

“We will stop them.” Her sister swears, and she looks like Sempu, her bow clenched in her hands and her teeth bared. “They will not go unpunished.”

Sìlwanìn is screaming. 

She wails and wails, her arm clutched to her chest as she thrashes in Sempu's arms, unheeding of Sa’nu’s worried words and Neytiri’s quiet tears. Sìlwanìn scratches at her arm, at her chest and her hair as she wails, a grief-stricken creature that has been let free. 

“He is gone!” Neytiri makes out between her cries.

Sempu holds her tighter, Sa’nu falling to her knees beside her daughter. 

“Oh, maite.” She murmurs, as she wraps her arms around Sìlwanìn, rocking the three of them back and forth. She opens her arms for Neytiri, and continues swaying them all once she’s joined the embrace. “Maite, you are not alone, daughter, daughter, you are not alone-”

Sìlwanìn’s thrashing stops, a puppet cut from its strings as she slumps in their arms. Tears stain her cheeks, shudders wracking through her despite the warmth of the dry season air. 

“He is gone.” She rasps, broken. “We were so close, Sa’nu. We were so close.”

Because after everything, after working so many years and pouring his entire life into this, after doing the impossible, he didn’t make it. He is dead, light years away from his soul’s partner, from a person so desperate to See him. 

Sìlwanìn’s face is marred with stripes of black and white ash, and Neytiri is terrified of her grief. Her sister had only a few months with her syayäftxeytu and yet it seems like his death has carved out some vital part of her, butchering whatever remained of the place he once held in her heart. 

She has tied wrappings around her arm, where she would have written to him. When she was changing it, in the early morning, Neytiri had caught a glimpse of black letters and had turned away, heart in her throat, unable to watch the tenderness with which her sister traced them.  

“I love you.” Neytiri tells Tsu’tey the next morning. She has not slept well, no one in her family has. She looks at her syayäftxeytu, at her Tsu’tey, her best friend and he understands what she is trying to say. Do not leave me. 

He does not promise that, but he does wrap his arms around her, tight enough that she swears she feels her bones creak. She hugs him just as tight, prays she is never given the opportunity to forget what it feels like to be in his embrace. 

“I love you.” He says, and she murmurs it back, again and again until she’s certain she’ll never forget the sound of the words on his lips, the timbre of his voice. 

She does not know what she will do if she loses him. 

(Neytiri’s husband will tell her, years later, after they put the pieces together and realise their lives were intertwined long before they met, that Tommy was killed. Murdered, for useless pieces of paper that humans used to trade. 

Sìlwanìn’s syayäftxeytu lost his life because of another’s greed, because a human with insanity in their mind looked at a life, weighed it against pieces of paper and decided it was worth less. Sìlwanìn’s syayäftxeytu died scared and alone, bleeding to death. Sìlwanìn’s syayäftxeytu was the brother of Neytiri’s mate, and this hadn’t been what she intended when she said he would be her brother. Sìlwanìn’s syayäftxeytu spent the last moments of his life writing a final message on his wrist, with a pen he had in his pocket, the only thing his murderer had deemed useless.

I’m sorry.

Jake had caught a glimpse of the words just before his brother was cremated. His avatar body was supposed to have those marks, he tells her, guilty. But without Tommy’s soul, his mind, there was no marks. 

Neytiri doesn’t know what to do with that, with the conflicting emotions. She wants it all: her sister and her sister’s syayäftxeytu, her Tsu’tey and her Jake. Perhaps it is greedy, or wanting, but she wants it. It should have been hers, that life, with so much love. )

Sìlwanìn is murdered six days later. 

It happens too quickly, too suddenly. Her sister is alive one moment, fear in her eyes and pleas on her lips and the next she collapses onto the floor of the school, and crimson pools and spills and bleeds, bleeds, bleeds. Someone is screaming, guttural and raw, and it takes Neytiri a second to connect the sound to the grating of her throat. 

Grace pulls her back, takes a bullet for her that spills blood across her torso and her legs, and then Tsu’tey is there and he is pulling Neytiri away, away from Sìlwanìn and she’s screaming at him, that they cannot leave her-

“She is dead!” He snaps at her, tears down his cheeks. He shakes her by the shoulders. “I will not lose you too!”

Neytiri cannot move, his words reverberating in her skull. She is dead, she is dead, she is dead, sheisdead-

Tsu’tey grabs her, throws her over his shoulder and runs. 

Neytiri bursts into tears when she sees her sister in the Spirit Tree. 

“I’m sorry,” She sobs, though she doesn’t know why she’s apologising. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

Sìlwanìn rocks her back and forth, soothing and warm in a way she never will be again in life. 

The school is shut down. If it had been up to her grief, it would have burned but she will not risk the Na’rìng with such foolishness. 

Grace is called before her parents - the ashes of grief still streaked down their faces - and banished. There are many of her old teachers there, but many who are not. 

Cowards, Neytiri thinks, then swears to never think of them again, 

(When Grace returns, years later, at Jake’s request, Neytiri asks after them. She wishes to put another demon of her mind to rest, to soothe the child inside of her that still wonders why they did not show, when she had been so certain they had loved her and her people. 

“Oh, Neytiri.” Grace says, and Neytiri lets her take her hands in Grace’s own. “They…they were killed. The day of the shooting.”

“Oh.” Neytiri says, because what else is there to say?

Six years older she may be, but she has yet to learn what to say to someone with a syayäftxeytu lost. She does not meet Vahia’s eyes in the talioang hunt the next morning, but cannot help the way her eyes linger on the colours still bright on his skin. )

Neytiri is betrothed to her syayäftxeytu when she is eighteen. Her parents ask her, for she will be the next tsahìk and with Tsu’tey as the next olo’eyktan, it makes sense. She loves him, and he loves her, even if Sìlwanìn’s ghost remains between them, a gaping chasm they cannot cross.

“You are certain?” Tsu’tey asks her. Her parents have given her time to think of the proposal, but she thinks she has made her decision in a day’s time. 

“I love you, and you love me.” She says, shrugging. “Is that not what matters?”

He looks at her, eyes searching. “You will be happy?”

“I will be with you.” She says. “How can I be anything but?”

It isn’t what he’s asking, but it’s the only response she can give that is true. The years have been harsh on them, and they are no longer the wide-eyed children they had once been. It had once been so easy to read the emotions flitting across his face; now, it is as though she stares at a stranger. 

“Okay.” He says. He hesitates for a moment, mouth opening, but closes it with a shake of his head. “Okay.”

(She will lose him too.)

It is the night before the battle with the ayvrrtep. (It is the night before she loses her syayäftxeytu.)

They sit side by side, legs swinging over the tree branch as they look at the people below them. So many clans and thousands of Na’vi.

“It is strange how quiet it is.” Tsu’tey says, chin resting on one knee that he hugs to his chest. She cannot bring herself to look at him, at the olo’eyktan regalia he wears. Her father’s bow weighs heavy on her back. 

She hums in agreement. 

“I am sorry.” 

She looks at him, surprised. 

“Do not look so surprised.” He huffs at her, rolling his eyes.

“You are apologising.” She says, dredging up some of the remnants of humour left in her. “How can I not?” She frowns. “Should you not apologise to Jake?’

Tsu’tey frowns. “Why would I?”

Neytiri’s tail flicks in irritation. “Then why are you apologising to me?”

“You think it’s because I hit your skxawng of a mate?” Tsu’tey scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I would happily punch him again.”

“He is Toruk Makto.”

“He is Jake Sully.” Tsu’tey deadpans. “He ate mud for the first few days of life here.”

Neytiri’s cheeks heat with embarrassment for her mate, and her tail flicks out to slap her syayäftxeytu’s arm.

“Then why?” She asks.

The humour, what little had sparked there, fades. “You did not tell me that you were unhappy with our betrothal. I have failed you, if you did not think you could come to me about that.”

Neytiri’s ears fold and she shuffles closer to him. “Tsu’tey-”

“Do not get me wrong.” He says. “I do not like that you mated with Jake Sully, but not because of our broken betrothal. I am just..” He looks away from her, as though ashamed. “I am angry with myself, that I have pushed you away so far that you would not come to me about this. That you fell in love and I did not even know.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and loops their tails. “We had both changed after Sìlwanìn. For better and for worse.” Neytiri takes his hand in hers, slots their fingers together as she has done for more years than she can remember. “I am sorry too, for drawing away from you. I wanted to tell you, I did.”

“But you didn’t.”

And that was the end of it, wasn’t it? She loved him so much, her syayäftxeytu, the extension of her heart. And still, she had not told him. The Neytiri of six years ago would have. 

“We can try to be better.” She says. She shifts so her chin rests on his shoulder and she can look him in the eyes. “If you want.”

His eyes search hers and she leaves the emotions bare; whatever he is looking, she knows he finds it when he squeezes her hand and a smile lifts his face. 

“Yes.” He says. “I would want that.”

She squeezes his hand. “Me too.”

(They never get the time, in this life.)

Neytiri loses track of how much time they spend there, just talking. About Sìlwanìn and the war dawning the next morning, about Kelutral and Toruk Makto. They talk about aysyayäftxeytu and their future, he makes fun of her mate and she pretends to be obnoxiously offended by it, even if she laughs at some of the more creative insults he comes up with. 

She does not know it, but it is the last conversation she will have with him in life, beyond the ‘stay safe’ he tells her before she mounts Seze. She wishes it weren’t, that they had many more conversations in the long years that they should have had together, but it is so she is grateful it is a kind one. 

The stars are bright above them, and Neytiri loves her syayäftxeytu. Loves his laugh and his dry quips, loves the way he protects their people, protects her. She loves his stubbornness and bravery, the way he is strong and true and kind. Oh, how she loves how he is kind. 

Her eyes droop eventually as sleep tugs insistently on her mind. She falls asleep like that, her head resting on his shoulder, looking over their people below. 

She falls asleep, worried and afraid, yes; how can she not, with war waiting to greet her with the sun’s first light?

She falls asleep, safe and warm, too; how can she not, with her syayäftxeytu beside her?