Chapter Text
Stunning nights on Pandora, like the one the people were currently enjoying, were far from uncommon. What was out of the ordinary was Jake and Neytiri’s absence. Having three kids under two didn’t allow for much free time, much less time for dates. Decades later, the payoff finally came around: teenagers that could, Eywa willing, keep out of trouble for a few hours, letting mom and dad have some much needed one-on-one time. Was the wait worth it? Jake and Neytiri would agree in a heartbeat.
“Now, no mischief, do you hear?” Jake said firmly, giving everyone a look as he moved an accusing finger to his youngest son. “And that means you, especially.”
“Copy.” Lo’ak rolled his eyes, unable to hide his lack of sincerity.
“Your big sister’s in charge.” Jake grunted as he tightened his belt. Neytiri glided across the wooden floor behind him, picking up her bow and arrow. “Not that it should matter much. You’re all gonna be in bed by the time we’re gone, isn’t that right?”
He was met with murmurs of halfhearted compliance. Jake ruffled the heads of each of his kids in farewell, turning and parting the beaded entrance. Neytiri made her rounds, doling out sweet goodbye kisses.
“Be good,” she reminded them. With a final warning look, she turned and slipped her hand into Jake’s, running off into the night.
The room held its silence for a minute. Lo’ak wasted no time springing up, clapping once to dispel the awkward atmosphere. “Well. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Lo’ak.” You hissed his name as if it were the reprimand itself. “They haven’t even been gone five minutes. They are probably still at the perch.”
“So? You gonna tell on me?” He grinned, pinching at your cheeks. “You never do.”
You swatted his hand away. “Maybe I should start.”
“He’d tell on you.” Tuk said matter-of-factly, pointing to Neteyam.
Lo’ak scoffed. “I know.”
Neteyam raised his hands in surrender. “It’s not telling. It’s warning. Because somehow, even when you rope me into your schemes, you always find trouble that I have to clean up.”
“Nobody asked you to ‘clean up’ after me.” Lo’ak’s voice was bitter.
Neteyam laughed dryly, ignoring his brother’s poorly concealed disdain. “Nobody has to ask. That’s how this older brother thing works.”
You exchanged a look with Kiri. Sibling rivalry extends beyond the threads of time, and it was an ugly conflict to deal with. Two parties in the right, too different to truly understand the other yet sharing a stubbornness that threatened to keep them on parallel paths; never meeting, never reconciling. You feared that one will always miss the point.
“Whatever.” Lo’ak mumbled and turned to exit. You shot up from your seat and blocked his path.
“You’re not going out right now, Lo’ak.” You glared at him, pleased when he took a few steps back. “You heard Dad.”
He gave you a weird look. “But… You always let me go—“
“Yeah, in daylight. It’s twilight out there, and… I have a bad feeling.”
“Five minutes.” He bargained.
“No. My word is final, get in bed.”
He groaned, stomping off to his pod and throwing himself into bed. Drama queen.
Kiri snorted at her brother’s sulking, ushering Tuk to do the same and climb into bed. The youngest Sully was already yawning, her tail thrashing wildly as she fought with the swinging hammock for balance.
Your eyes flickered to Lo’ak’s turned back before crouching beside the fire. Neteyam shuffled beside you, golden eyes darting between you and the others.
“How do you get him to listen to you?” He asked.
You offered him a sympathetic look. “I don’t think anything I say would help you, Neteyam. You’re… you. Beloved first son. He’s Lo’ak. Also beloved, just… cast in shadow. You’re a big part of his life—of all of our lives, too. You cast a very big shadow.”
He frowned.
“There’ll be a time where he realizes,” you squeezed his arm in reassurance, “that you’re not an enemy, but a rival. Not an extension of Dad, but a brother. He can’t see that you’re on his side, yet—he’s young. Don’t take it personally.”
An appreciative smile spread on Neteyam’s face. In a world where a lot rested on his shoulders, where his father was the one casting a shadow on him, he needed help navigating what it meant to be the Olo'eyktan’s first son.
“Okay,” he nodded.
“Okay.” you smiled and stood, patting his shoulder.
You stoked the fire once more before climbing into your pod, stretching your body as long as it would allow you to and releasing the tension building up in your joints. Neteyam jumped into his bed with a long sigh, yawning. His faint goodnight barely met your ears.
The night sunk deeper into darkness. You thought you were asleep when you were gently jostled awake—it was a steady rumble, similar to Jake's heartbeat when he rocked you to sleep as a child, or Neytiri's throat when she sang. But this feeling brought you the opposite of comfort.
Pandora groaned long enough to stirr you restless, forcing you from your pod to the marui’s open window.
New stars in the sky. A new threat from above—ships decelerating.
You stood quietly among your sleeping siblings and wondered what misery the future would bring.
. . .
"Move," Kiri shoved past you, carrying a bowl of salve she whipped up for injured soldiers. "You're going to get trampled."
You glared at her back as she continued to hustle through the Omatikayan crowd. The upside of your family: three cute babies all at once. The downside: all of them entering the teenage stage simultaneously. Chaos and snide quips became the norm very quickly over the past year, and you often joined your parents their newly acquired role as scapegoats.
You knew you were a fish out of water and didn't appreciate the reminder. Every time you stepped outside your family tent, you were in someone's way. On the ground, you stood a chance—even outperformed some Na'vi children. In the sky, living at High Camp in the Hallelujah Mountains, you were at the bottom of the bucket.
You could scale the large branches and vines in your sleep, but something about the extreme height handicapped you. Unlike the rest of your family, you didn’t have a banshee to fall back on. One wrong move and you would be falling to your death, and not one of the lurking ikrans would heed your calls. Pandora would not save you.
You were nineteen, now. Neteyam was fifteen, Lo'ak and Kiri were fourteen, and Tuk was seven. Why were you being treated as the baby—worse, the deadweight?
You worked to bury your humanness for fifteen years, but it was back more obvious than ever.
You glanced off into the distance, wondering where Kiri ran off to. She completely missed Grandmother's tent. And the injured soldiers her salve was supposed to heal was nowhere to be seen. You surged across the base, spotting her conversing with Lo'ak and Spider.
Their chatter immediately diminished when you approached them.
Suspicious. You eyed them warily. "...What are you up to?"
"Nothing." They said in unison.
"We're going out!" Tuk chirped from behind you. She clung to your shoulders and whispered goodbye before skipping off to join the others. Expertly ignoring Lo'ak's menacing look and silent warning to shut up, you turned to your youngest sister.
"Out, Tuk? Where?"
She shrugged. “The old wrecks or something. I dunno.”
You raised an eyebrow, turning to Lo’ak. “Aren’t you grounded?”
Lo’ak scowled. “From flying. Doesn’t mean I can’t walk.”
“Grounded means confined to base,” you deadpanned. “I’m guessing Dad doesn’t know about this.”
Lo’ak avoided your eyes.
“Mom, at least?” You asked, exasperated. This boy kept making the same mistakes and wondered why he always got in trouble. “Grandmother?”
“We’re just going on a walk.” Spider butt in, hoping to ease the tension.
You shook your head, holding up a hand to silence Spider. You loved the kid, you truly did. He grew up alongside you, just as your siblings did. Though you called him brother, he didn’t have the same place in your heart as Neteyam and Lo’ak did. He was different in the sense that he mirrored your circumstances.
“A walk into an enemy zone?” You gave them all incredulous looks. “You got told off for being reckless and you’re going to do the exact same thing again?” You attempted to reason with Lo’ak.
The irritation on Jake’s face was hard to forget. Lo’ak got yelled at for putting himself and Neteyam in harm’s way during their supply run. How he was able to block out all caution and logic was beyond you.
He groaned and ran past you, intent on dismissing your advice. You wondered if he heard Jake in your words and had some sort of automatic reaction to them. “We’re not gonna do anything dangerous, don’t worry. We just took out a bunch of their stupid guys, anyway.” He nodded to his sisters. “Come on.”
“Bye!” Tuk sang as she followed her brother. Spider and Kiri gave you apologetic looks, sympathetic as if anyone was forcing them to go out except themselves.
You watched them leave. A part of you hoped they would get into trouble. That’d strike some sense into them, wouldn’t it? You shook the ill thoughts from your head.
Should I tell Dad?
The last thing you wanted to do was infringe upon the trust they placed in you, but you were positively, absolutely, without-a-doubt, 100% certain they would find themselves in an unfortunate situation—it was an uneasy suspense you couldn’t ignore. The same ‘bad feeling’ you were burdened with the night the RDA returned.
You let out a yell of audible frustration. You swiped your bow, arrows, and knife from the tent and discreetly followed behind them.
. . .
The minute I get over my fear of heights, you told yourself, I’ll be unstoppable.
For now, you settled for carefully inching your way down the Hallelujah Mountains. Ikran shot passed you occasionally, unaware of your presence. Or maybe they didn’t care.
You lost sight of the group, but at least you knew where they were headed.
Your feet finally reunited with the cool, damp soil and you had to take a moment to appreciate its familiarity. The rocks of high camp did not embrace your feet like the dirt did… It felt like a welcome home.
On the ground, you were much quicker. You bolted through the terrain, scaling trees and bounding between branches. Coming to an abrupt stop at the old shack, you crept as close as you could while remaining concealed by foliage.
There was a time this place was your home. Steel floors that gave away your position with a hollow clank clank clank as you ran across them. You remembered when Grace moved her lab to keep away from Quaritch’s prying eyes, carrying you along with the crew. Nothing about your life was natural. Then again, anything RDA was unnatural to this world, and that included you.
Your trip down memory lane was cut short when you saw blue heads poke into your peripheral. Your sisters, brother, and Spider crouched out of view while foreign avatars entered the clearing and started to rifle around the old shack.
The lead avatar looked particularly familiar, but… the man you were thinking of was dead.
“We were never supposed to come down here,” Kiri whispered urgently.
Hm. Who could’ve told you that, you rolled your eyes lightly.
You began to assess the situation: there was no way you could take on those avatars alone. If your suspicions were correct, they were highly trained, like your father. No one back at camp knew where you were, and the avatars had yet to notice the gaggle of children ogling from a distance.
You reached for your throat. Shit. Your comms were at home. Luckily, Lo’ak had a similar idea.
“Devil Dog, this is Eagle Eye. Over. I got eyes on some…”
Dropping down would startle them and you were reluctant to take the chance and risk giving their position away. You lay in wait until Jake inevitably instructed them to pull back.
But of course the idiots had to bicker.
“See, I told you.”
“Shut up.”
“I know a quick way. Guys, come on!”
“It’s almost eclipse—!”
“Shh, tuk.”
“You’re gonna be in so much trouble.”
“Kiri, stop.”
So consumed by your annoyance, you didn’t notice the movement in the bushes—
“Ah!” Tuk shrieked, her neural braid yanked back by one of the recoms.
Panic flared up your spine. An icy-hot flash radiated up your neck to your face. You slung two arrows on your bow, pulling the string taut. You inhaled deeply. One… two…
“Tuk!” Kiri spun around, racing back to her. Lo’ak whipped a knife and lunged, teeth bared.
THUNKTHUNK.
Your arrows pierced the shoulders of two soldiers, who collapsed to the ground.
“Na’vi in the trees!” The commander yelled out. The remaining soldiers lifted their guns to the greenery above them, spinning wildly to locate you. Bullets flew wildly, wedging themselves in the trunks and branches of the surrounding trees.
The one holding Tuk relaxed his grip. She took the opportunity to sink her teeth into his skin.
“Run!” You screamed over gunfire, firing another arrow into the flesh of a solider and ducking out of the way as bullets followed you.
“Hey—!” Lo’ak yelled. “Was that—?!”
“Come on!” Kiri snapped, grabbing her siblings’ arms and racing off.
THUNK.
Another soldier dropped in pain. The arrow dug into their arm, and they snapped the long wooden stem in half.
“What the hell is happening?!” The commander’s disapproval was palpable.
“Don’t think that’s Na’vi, sir. I think… that’s a human chick.”
Keep it together, you silently begged. You’ve done what matters already. Hopefully those idiots were making it home. And hopefully, Jake was on his way. Your father never failed to rescue you from trouble.
You were aware that leaving the recoms out here, alive, was a mistake. But you’ve never killed anyone before. Hunting prey, sure, but people?
Your hands shook—none of your arrows were as fatal as you’d hoped. Neytiri would be disappointed.
“It’s just one girl,” thecommander snapped, snatching a gun and letting some shots fly. You cowered behind your tree, head burying into your knees to escape the sharp sound of bullets. “Come out, sweetheart. We’re on your side. You’re human in the Na’vi camps, I’m human in a Na’vi body. We’re in similar predicaments, don’t you think?”
You clamped a hand over your mouth to silence a frightened squeal when bullets hit the bark behind you, feeling the impact against the back of your skull..
You jumped into another tree, blending into the foliage. I need to get of here—
“Hey.”
You whipped your head around. There they were, back where you just rescued them from. Emotions flashed by, all of them shortening your breath and causing your heart to beat out your chest. Anger was the one you landed on when you mustered the bandwith to speak. “What are—“
“We’re not leaving you.” Lo’ak said heroically. His hand remained extended.
Your valiant, naïve baby brother. You don’t think he understood how much harder it would be to sneak out as a pack travelling together. If you jumped down now, there was no guarantee all of you were making it.
You wanted to scream. Why doesn’t he listen? You bumped your head on your bow repeatedly. think think think thinkthinkthink…
“Just jump down, quickly!” Lo’ak waved his arms to coax you.
The rustle of leaves was more than enough for trained recom ears—In the next moment, everything you achieved was taken away from you just as quickly.
“Get them, get them!”
“Stop fighting,” one recom snarled, kicking behind Lo'ak's knees and forcing him to the ground.
“Kiri!” Tuk wailed, yanked farther from her siblings by her kuru.
“Mawey.” Kiri tried to soothe her, but the fear in her eyes was unmistakable. Be calm; a reminder for herself just as much as the rest of you.
“Shut up. Don’t move.”
The four kids were seized, hissing and baring their teeth. Your bow and arrow were shot from your hands, the near miss of the bullet leaving a trail of fire across your arm. Lo’ak hissed, writhing against his captor in defiance.
Your body locked up in pain, and with a swift blow to your back, you collapsed to the ground. The kids stared at you with anticipation, an unspoken question of how you were getting us out of here. manifesting in their expressions.
You stared at them in a state of panicked helplessness. You found the courage to step forward just as a punch landed straight across your face, knocking you out.