An: Let's start this off with a Spider pov.
Spider followed his dad, watching him with a distant horror. The only way he had emotionally survived so far was by acting detached. He knew the Colonel was bad but... Quaritch was a fucking monster. For days now they had toured the coast, roughing up sea people villages. This included burning their homes, shooting their ilu...but not yet killing anyone. Spider had narrowly averted this crisis on several occasions now.
He would've loved to leave Quaritch, but they had put a tracker in the mask they lent him and if he took it off...Well, he wasn't too keen on toxic suffocation. Recently they had paired up with some butchers that called themselves poachers, but poachers normally used what they killed. They killed a tulkun, separating it from it's calf and all they got from the extremely cruel ordeal was about a liter of golden fluid one of the assholes called amrita. Scoresby had explained as Spider watched them dump the corpse that a single dose was worth $80 million, since it completely stopped human aging.
The calf was probably dead now too. Spider didn't know. He couldn't bring himself to look anymore. Instead, he focused his energies memorizing the layout of the ship and how many people had how many guns. He noted patrols and snuck a look at emergency procedures, like say if the ship began to sink. Now if he could only figure out some way to snitch grenades without being noticed. He wasn't going to leave without making a mark. At least this way he could keep tabs on Quaritch and occasionally steer him wrong.
"What are you thinking about boy?" Quaritch appeared next to him and leaned over to balance on the railing that Spider could naturally just stand against. "Any ideas yet where that bitch with the mohawk went?"
"I've told you before, I've never met these people. They must have joined up with the Sully family after you kidnapped me." He allowed himself to show a little bitterness.
"Can't kidnap your own kid." Quaritch sounded angry now.
Good. Spider thought. You get stupid when you're pissed.
x
"Mon, she can't swim. Ya need to get in there!" Bwonsamdi prodded at him, borderline scolding as he raised his voice.
"W-what? You let me do this knowing that?! Bwonsamdi!" Zekhan let go of the spirit that was allowing him to walk on the water and fell through the surface, flipping and swimming down. Thankfully her blue skin stood out against the colorful corals and sea fans. Looping an arm around her waist, he dragged her up when he kicked off the bottom. Bwonsamdi was heckling him the whole time. "She lives with a coastal tribe! How can she not swim?!"
"She wasn't always with the sea people, Zappy!" Then Zekhan dragged Kali's limp form onto the sandy bank and laid her flat on her back.
He was preparing to shock her but Bwonsamdi yelled at him again. "Her heart don't be stopped yet! That'll kill her!"
"You be the loa of death! You'll kill her!" Zekhan snapped, trying to start chest compressions. "Just don't be reapin' her soul!"
Bwonsamdi quieted and Zekhan turned back to Kali only for her to bolt upright and smash her lips into his. She had enough time for half a sentence. "Are you going to kiss-" Luckily for her, she went right betweem his tusks and their lips connected, rather a tusk and her eye. For a few seconds they sat stock still like this, eyes looking into each other's. Then her lips started to move, but Zekhan chose that moment to pull back.
Realizing he just backed out in the middle of her trying to kiss back, he decided to change the subject. "Well, I guess you be needing to learn water breathing before I teach you water walking." A look fell over Kali's face and Zekhan saw quite clearly that he had messed something up.
She turned away, standing and unsteadily going to the waters edge. She whistled for her ilu, which surfaced and allowed her to climb on. "Well, Zekhan since you apparently never needed me to get around...You can catch up I'm sure. My brother needs me." She began to speed off at this, diving down occasionally so the ilu could breathe.
Bwonsamdi burst into laughter. "Oh Zappy...you be fucking it up already. Go. Go after her."
x
Kali felt stupid. She felt like a stupid, hormonal teenager. Of course the perfect stranger didnt want to kiss her. Why do I even want to kiss him? Realizing her ilu was drifting she corrected her course and then stopped dead in the water. What direction was she even trying to go? She wasn't sure. There was no gurantee her parents and Lo'ak were even still at the reef for whatever reason Zekhan hadn't wanted her to witness. There was also no guarantee anyone she wanted or needed to see was at the village.
For a long moment Kali thought about just leaving again, but the idea didn't sit right with her. It was becoming more and more undeniable to her there was a whole way of life she had forgotten and it wasn't here. Maybe it had gotten cut short, but she wanted to know of it. She wanted to know if this...Azeroth was the origin of the pull deep down in her soul.
Would she feel like she belonged there? Would it soothe the ache that felt empty? Zekhan was really cute and his voice sure made her feel funny in all the right ways. Spending almost four days in the jungle with him had made her see how he carried himself and she liked it. She wanted to learn more. So why did I run away? "Because I'm embarrassed I used an accident as an excuse to make a move and he turned me down."
With this realized she turned her ilu to go back the way she came. Pain exploded across her face and her neck snapped back, almost knocking her off the ilu. She put shaking hands to her face, afraid to move her neck. Her fingers came away dripping and red. The pain receeded and she realized it was in her nose and had just spread across her entire face.
Slowly she lowered her head in time to get grabbed under both arms and lifted up over the side of a boat. Realizing what was going on, she started screaming and kicking. "Let me go you fuckers!"
A hand pressed a cloth to her face and Kali felt the world beginning to slip away.
x
Spider was sitting with the only marine biologist who had a conscience when he heard the hooting and hollering that usually accompanied the Marines returning. Quaritch busted into the room with the command console with a gleeful look on his face. "I've done it boy. I've secured the means to force Sully and his insurgents to surrender."
Clement took a long gulp from his bottle of Jack and prepared to be a part of yet another thing that was going to destroy his soul. "What did you do?" Spider was up, right next to Quaritch almost in his face.
Quaritch's blue face grinned down at him, all sharp fang and malice. "I captured that little bitch we cornered in the ikran nests. No wizard to save her this time. I'm to send Sully some pictures of her roughed up to make him give himself over. Then the rest will follow."
Spider felt his stomach drop into his toes. "Where is she? Where is she?!" He shoved the Colonel the second time.
"In the brig getting roughed up, boy. Now get out of my face. I need to lie down and have a nap. I've been tripping over my own two feet all day and I ain't even had a drink yet."
x
Ya need to wake up, little one. I know it's hard, but ya need to. Kali struggled to open her eyes and just let her body be limp again. "I can't. I'm too warm." She said to the voice in her head. Her arm twitched on it's on own. Kali groaned and turned her head, eyes still shut. There was a distant banging she couldn't be bothered to see the source of. The Darkspear I know wouldn't let some drugs keep her down, mon. You have to get up. Your da is going to be captured and executed using ya own capture as bait.
"Sounds horrible." Kali mumbled. "Go back to sleep, Tuk." She rolled over again, barely managing the movement with how sluggish she felt. She was so tired. In fact, Kali had never been this tired before. "Tell Mom. I need sleep." One of her legs twitched. "Stop touching me, Tuk." There was a violent shove and her whole body moved a couple inches. Annoyed, Kali let her eyes open and... immediately forgot everything.
She lay on a stone slab, shivering and cold. So cold. The stone was wet, sticky, and red. It almost smelled strongly of copper and made her tummy hurt. A quick glance over the edge of the slab revealed it was maybe four and a half feet raised from the ground. She looked at her legs and saw how short they were, enough to wonder if she could get down without falling. Were they always purple? She wiggled to the edge of the slab and dropped down getting the sticky red stuff all over herself as she did it. A few braided red strands of hair appeared in her eyes and she brushed them away when she felt her feet reach solid ground. Then she turned around. There on carved, stone steps going down into a hazy mist floated an orange blob. Ignoring the massive jungle rising up from either side of the mist, she approached.
"Hello?" She asked, her voice small and scared. It was a child's voice.
The ball of orange light moved close enough she felt heat flickering off of it. Then feline eyes opened on it and it began to take shape. Proportionate arms terminating in little claws. A tapered tail came down from the torso and wiggled below the floating ember. It was small, smaller than she was. A feeling came from it, washed over her. Loneliness. Fear. Anger. A need to defend. A fury like no other, contained in a small form perfectly capable of destruction. There was also a want layered deep below these feelings. "You want to play together again? Like we used to? I don't know what you mean, but it sounds like fun. I...I feel like I haven't had much fun."
One of the clawed hands reached for her, poking her own finger. A slow warmth spread through her veins, which glowed orange all the way up her tiny purple arms and then...the heat reached her core and her heart opened. She remembered that she was Kali Sully... but also this spirit she had been very close to in another time and place. A spirit that had followed her, keeping close to her soul this whole time. A spirit that was forgotten with the still suppressed trauma of her previous death.
Kali shot awake, the drugs burning out of her system in real time. The young Na'vi woman reflected in the glass back at her had glowing orange eyes and a thin, shimmery current of red coating her skin. "I missed you." She said, able to see the spirit next to her now. "Will you help me escape?" Power swelled within her and Kali went over to the military grade observation glass she was being kept behind, putting her glowing palms on it. The surface began to warp and distort with the heat coming off her fingers. Kali eyed the necklace that had appeared on her neck. It had four colored gems, and the red one flickered with life.
"Saving myself." She smirked. "How's that for a Darkspear woman?"