A cold hand on her shoulder was shaking her awake. Na'dia growled threateningly, in an attempt to stay in the depths of unconsciousness, but whoever was trying to rouse her was relentless.
"Wake up," rumbled a deep male voice.
This was different. Despite her tiredness, Na'dia cracked an eye open to see Txep'ean's face looming over her. She smiled, and started to stretch voluptuously when the wound on her side pulled open.
"Yeow!" she shrieked, at the stinging pain on her rib cage. The arrow wound was deeper than she had thought – it was much more than just a paper cut.
"Stop being such a baby and hold still," he ordered, oblivious to the flash of annoyance in her eyes at his abrupt words. "Ninat, give me the lotion."
"Ow," muttered Na'dia, as the man she had previously thought of as her beloved applied a stinging lotion to her side, washing away the dried blood. He wasn't being very gentle, either - the rotten bastard.
"You were lucky that Zetey had not poisoned her arrow," said Txep'ean. "I told you that it was dangerous to come into the Omaticaya camp. Did you listen? No."
"Whatever were you thinking?" added Ninat, who was also glaring at her. "You know that the anti-tawtute faction would love to have your guts spilled on the ground."
When she righteously attempted to reply via sign, both of them snapped at her not to move. Na'dia scowled at them – she didn't remember Txep'ean objecting at the time of her kiss. He had been most enthusiastic at the time. It was times like this that she really regretted she had lost the power of speech. No doubt if she even tried to use the translator device on her pe'dehayu the siblings would tell her off for trying to move.
Na'dia snorted in disdain. As if a Na'vi hunter could kill her.
"Is that so, oh high and mighty one?" scolded Ninat, apparently reading her thoughts without the benefit of tsahaylu. "If Wokan hadn't let you through the circle, you would be dead by now. Txep'ean told me what happened last night."
Na'dia deflated a little – actually, more than a little, she deflated a lot. Ninat was right – she had been lucky that she had stumbled across Wokan rather than anyone else. But then, she had been trying to escape the hunters without killing anyone, so she had effectively been fighting with both hands tied behind her back. She tried to say something to refute the accusation, but all that came out of her mouth was a series of plaintive whines and yips, which sounded weak even to her ears.
"Ninat, hold the edges of the wound together," ordered Txep'ean rather brusquely. He took a spatula, and started to ladle some kind of honey-like fluid onto her skin, smoothing it over her injury. "Don't move, and only take shallow breaths until the resin hardens."
The sharp pain in her side eased as he applied the resin, which rapidly hardened on contact with the lotion into a clear but flexible dressing. Not only was it going to keep her wound clean, but it seemed it also it had mild anaesthetic qualities as well.
"This will peel off in four or five days," advised Txep'ean, "As long as you don't pick at it. Your wound should have mostly healed by then, if you are still alive, that is."
Did he have to mention about picking at the wound? The skin under the dressing immediately started to itch, and she desperately wanted to scratch. She had always peeled scabs off her knees too early when she was a child in Kiev, and her mother had always scolded her for not leaving them alone. Her father, on the other hand, had laughed, and told her that he had done exactly the same.
While she was waiting for the dressing to fully bond to her skin, Txep'ean added, "You are going to have to make yourself scarce. Last night's escapade stirred up a fire-wasp nest. Zhake and Ney'tiri told me that you should go away until things settle down, otherwise the faction will hunt you down."
She growled quietly. Na'dia did not want to go away right now, not when things were going so well with her lengthy seduction of Txep'ean, when a thought struck her. The two siblings could come with her. Na'dia looked hopefully at Ninat and Txep'ean, feeling a little like a puppy begging for a titbit, but was disappointed when Ninat said, "No, my love. We can't come with you – not if we wish to stay as Omaticaya. The faction have enough support to expel us from the clan if we are seen to be too close to you. Zhake and Ney'tiri need our loyalty in order to maintain control of the Omaticaya, especially since my brother has defected from the faction, thanks to you. They see him as a traitor."
"We don't have much time," said Txep'ean. "A hunting party was being formed when I left. I suspect they will follow my trail here, even though I was careful. I'm good, but I'm not that good. You have to go, right now. If we are lucky, we will have a little more than an hour to clean this place of evidence that you were here."
Sadly, Na'dia rose to her feet. Her neck was cricked from sleeping wrong, and she tilted her head to one side, and then the other, generating loud cracks from her spine. Ninat was right – it would be unfair for her to drag them away from the Omaticaya, from their roots. She sighed, embraced Ninat and then kissed her, and did the same to Txep'ean.
Just before she left the shelter of the small Hometree, she realised that there was one thing that she could do. Na'dia turned, and sang, "I love you..."
Na'dia gave Ninat and Txep'ean no time to respond. She melted into the forest, more like a ghost than a living being, and was gone.
