Tcelia struggled to gain consciousness, her brain feeling muddled and extremely heavy. The two first things she noticed was a loud, annoying ringing in her ears and the fact that she was thirsty, her mouth bone dry.
As her brain slowly started to focus on her surroundings and grounded her in her body, she realized that she was lying on her stomach on a hard surface. Tcelia vaguely realized that it was odd. She couldn't recall having fallen asleep on something hard. Her cheek, pressed into the cool surface, made her body shiver as it felt the contradicting temperature in the warm air and the coolness of the floor.
She cracked her eyes open slowly, blinking several times before her eyes would focus. She was met by darkness, slightly illuminated by electric lights. She sat up instantly, her cheek making a strange suction noise as it unstuck from the floor. She regretted it immediately as waves of nausea rolled over her, and the throbbing in her head intensified. She groaned as she tried to place a hand to her forehead but to her horror, her hands jerked to a stop midair, rope tearing into her skin at the force. Her hands were securely tied together around a thick pipe that ran down the wall. Tcelia quickly ducked her head, bending over and bringing her head to her hands instead, squeezing her eyes shut, trying not to throw up.
Tcelia vaguely noticed that her forehead was sticky as her palm pressed to the skin. She cringed at the smell of blood that clouded around her, and she forced herself to breathe through her mouth so that everything would stop spinning around her.
Taking deep breaths in and out, the nausea and the spinning slowly started to dissipate, the throbbing in her head lessening slightly which allowed her mind to remember. Memories came crashing down around her, how they had swum with the tulkun, how a ship had appeared, how her and Ao'nung had been caught in a net and carried away, how she had forced Neteyam to let go. How Ao'nung had crumbled as he had been knocked out and then how she too had been taken down and forced unconscious.
A picture of Neteyam's desperate eyes through the small holes in the net flashed through her mind and Tcelia sucked in a sharp breath, feeling her concern for him twisting her heart. Actually, concern was too weak a word, she was terrified for him. Had he gotten away? Was he safe? Had he taken his family and left as she had asked him to do? Thinking of him was almost too painful for her to handle, and she shoved every thought of him away, sure that if she allowed herself to think of him another second, she would go crazy without the knowledge of knowing if he was safe.
Another face flashed across her mind and her gut twisted with worry.
At the thought of Ao'nung, she bit back the remaining nausea, clenching her jaw, and slowly straightened to look around – she needed to know if he was okay. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could make out shapes of crates and containers around her. The air was filled with the sound of creaking metal and the rhythmic thud of the ship's engines.
She looked down at her hands, noticing that drying blood had caked the palm that had rested against her forehead. Glancing down at where her face had been resting on the floor minutes before, she noticed a pool of dryish blood smeared across the floor. Lowering her head, she rubbed at her cheek, thinking back to the sickening suction noise that had sounded as she had sat up, realizing that she had been lying in a pool of her own blood. As she ran her finger along the large gash by her hairline, she could only imagine how grim she must look, blood caking the left side of her face, barely dried in.
She forced herself to straighten up again, refusing to feel bad for herself. She looked around once again, adamant on coming up with a plan to escape. She refused to give up - Neteyam would be so disappointed in her if she did. Painfully shoving Neteyam away from her thoughts again she focused her mind on her surroundings.
Even though it appeared as if she was inside or locked away in some cargo space under the ship, the air wasn't the strange thin air that humans needed to breathe, and that she disliked so much every time she had gone to visit Grace or Norm and Max. She could breathe freely which meant that either the ship had a designated room for where Avatar's could roam free, or the space wasn't closed off and the back of the ship was open. Tcelia settled on the last option having a higher probability. Which also meant that there was an obvious route of escape.
She was torn out of her thoughts as someone groaned beside her. She jerked her head to the side, ignoring the jab of pain in her head as she did, spotting a shadow lying huddled beside her just out of reach.
"Ao'nung!" Tcelia exclaimed, jerking towards the Metkayina boy in a hurry. Somehow her mind had already forgotten that she was tied up and once again, the rope stopped her, sending jolts of pain through her shoulders and tearing at her wrists. Ao'nung didn't respond, still unconscious.
Tcelia hissed, pulling at the rope with all her might, ignoring the pain of the ropes digging into her skin, eating at it gradually. If she lived to tell this tale, Tcelia thought bitterly, she definitely wouldn't include the desperate and frustrated noises that escaped her lips as she tried to get the rope to budge.
When the rope rather rudely refused to snap and her wrists had started bleeding, Tcelia decided to try a different approach. The pipe was way too thick to break but that didn't stop Tcelia from trying. Though she was seated and not able to stand up due to the way her hands were tied so close to the floor, she managed to twist her body, forcing her foot into the pipe. Saying that she kicked it would have been too kind, it was more like consecutive hard shoves with her foot.
"Please stop that, you'll only hurt yourself."
Tcelia's face snapped towards the sound of the voice, and she quickly scrambled to twist as much as her restraints allowed her to, so that her body was facing as much as possible towards the large figure that was approaching her. He walked towards her slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, as if he owned it, and Tcelia hated him for it, hated him with every fiber of her being.
Quaritch kneeled down to look at her, placing an electric lamp he had been carrying beside him, just out of reach from Tcelia. The lamp cast a dim light across his face, illuminating him in an unsettling light.
She raised her chin, looking up at him with an unwavering gaze. She would not back down or flinch in front of this monster, would not give him the satisfaction of cowering and make him believe that he had any power over her.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot here," he began, chuckling slightly at Tcelia's steeled gaze. "I don't want to hurt you; I am only looking for information." He smiled at her condescendingly before he went on in a slow drawl, "Information I am sure that you can give me."
Tcelia bit back a comment about how she ended up unconscious in a pool of her own blood if he didn't want to hurt her, and jutted out her chin. "I am not saying another word," she spoke coldly, "before I see Spider."
Quaritch's smirk grew, and Tcelia wanted to hit him. "Do you really think that you're in a position to be negotiating, girl?"
When Tcelia squeezed her lips tightly together, leaning her back against the wall to indicate that she had plenty of time to wait for him to bring her Spider, Quaritch chuckled and pressed a button on an intercom he was wearing around his neck.
"Send the boy down." He didn't break eye contact with Tcelia as he said it, as if trying to communicate that he was doing her a kindness, as if saying 'see? We can all be friends here.' Tcelia scoffed at him.
No one spoke as they waited. They sat, watching each other, waiting for the other to back down and look away. But Tcelia would sooner die than let him win. He kept regarding her with a small smirk playing on his lips, and Tcelia's stomach rolled at how obvious it was that Quaritch saw her as someone much lesser, much more animal.
The sound of footsteps scoffing against concrete sounded, and Quaritch looked over his shoulder, smiling at Spider who appeared from behind a large container, a human soldier holding him by his arm. At the sight of Tcelia, his eyes widened as he exclaimed her name, and he elbowed the soldier in the stomach, breaking into a run towards her. Relief washed over her at seeing the boy unhurt and she leaned forwards to meet the boy.
He didn't get very far before Quaritch had slung an arm out, catching him by the waist just before he could reach her, "That's quite far enough." He gestured to the soldier, who just then had grabbed Spider roughly by the back of his neck, to stand down.
The soldier let go immediately and stepped to the side, standing ready for his next command.
Tcelia glared at the soldier before turning her eyes to Spider, her gaze immediately softening. "Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" She spoke in Na'vi, her voice quick and desperate.
"I am alright." Spider hurried, also responding in Na'vi. He splayed out his hands, looking truly miserable, "I swear, Tcelia, I didn't know that they had taken you or I would have found you sooner-"
"That's quite enough of that," Quaritch cut in, gesturing for the soldier to take a hold of Spider again so that Quaritch could kneel down in front of Tcelia again. Spider shrugged the soldier off angrily but remained standing behind Quaritch.
"So," Quaritch drawled, "Now that you see your pink friend here is unhurt, it is your turn to hold up the end of the bargain."
Tcelia raised an eyebrow at him, leaning back against the wall once again, "You are wasting your time."
"Alright, I'll play your game," Quaritch smirked, crossing his arms, "And why is that, pray tell?
"I'm not telling you where he is," Tcelia shrugged, "And he won't come for me either, if that was what you had been counting on." Quaritch's eyes narrowed, and Tcelia went on, even though the next thing pained her to say out loud, "I am not his kid; he won't risk his family for me. And this guy over here," she nodded her head towards Ao'nung, who was still knocked out, "is just some village Na'vi - a nobody, really." She met Quaritch's eyes again, shrugging in a mock apology, swallowing the bitter aftertaste that the words left her with as she spoke: "No one is coming for us."
"Is that so?" Quaritch bit the inside of his cheek as he spoke, an amused glint in his eyes, "Then why did Spider tell me that the whole Sully clan," he sneered, "was overly fond of you in particular? Or are you not the Tcelia that they raised alongside their kids, who lives with them and whom they treat as their own?"
Tcelia's eyes flickered to Spider in disbelief. He met her gaze with big eyes, as if trying to communicate how sorry he was for relaying the information to Quaritch. A quick flash of anger went through her but a voice in the back of her head reminded her that she wasn't being fair. Perhaps the information had been tortured out of him. Just because he looked unscathed now, didn't mean that nothing could have happened to him at all. Tcelia looked back at Quaritch, watching as his smirk grew at the confirmation Tcelia had just given him by looking at Spider.
He leaned closer to her, so close that Tcelia could see the green speck in his yellow eyes, "You have two options now, girl." He raised his brows, "Either you tell me where Jake Sully is and we go and get him with minimal casualties, or" he shrugged, "you don't tell us anything, and Jake comes anyway, no doubt with an army behind him, and we kill every single one of them."
Tcelia spit him in the face, which when looking back, probably wasn't one of her smartest ideas to date. Quaritch froze, all amusement disappearing from his features instantly. There was an awful second of anticipation in the air as they looked at each other, both breathing hard. Then He backhanded her across the face, and Tcelia rocked back at the force of it, smashing to the floor, landing in an odd angle due to her restraints. Her head reeled, vision swimming in and out of blackness and she could taste the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. She felt someone drop to their knees beside her, placing their hands on her back and she almost cringed away before she heard Spider's voice, desperately asking if she was okay.
"Why did you do that?" she could hear Spider yelling accusingly. Tcelia gritted her teeth and pushed herself up again, glaring at Quaritch.
Through her muddled brain, she felt Quaritch reach his hand down and grab a fist of her hair painfully, forcing her to look him in the eyes. He pushed Spider away, who had tried to get in front of him, as if he was nothing but a small nuisance.
"You listen here, girl," his voice was dangerously calm, "The blood will be on your hands if you don't tell me where he is, d'you understand?" Tcelia's heart tightened at the thought of Na'vi blood coloring the ocean red, all because of her, "Now, I am not in the business of killing innocents. Yet. But I will have no choice if you don't tell me where he is."
Telia thought of Neteyam, who hopefully had gotten far away by now. She knew that there would be no army, there would be no sea of red, no one to rescue them. She hissed at him in response to what he had said.
"Pity," he sighed before letting go of her hair, "I had such hoped that we could have helped each other."
"I would sooner die." She hissed at him as he rightened up and looked down at her, casting a long shadow over her face.
"You just might."