Zekhan looked around in the raging battle, still searching for a way to get closer to the ship. He was angry. Bruises didn't suit Kali's pretty blue face. Nor did the broken nose Quaritch had given her. Zekhan resolved to break a few of his. Or several. Bastard. The ocean was alive with gunfire and the utulations of angry Na'vi fighting for their home and their people. The ship she was on...it was sinking. He had to get there first, before she could drown in whatever cell they'd thrown her in. Let me be fast enough! The wind spirits heard this and pushed him along atop the water.

Zekhan had lost Thrall and Anduin a while back, and it was just him and Saurfang now. The old orc kept time in the canoe Thrall had carved, stabbing soldiers as he went. He had Zekhan's back, and he was...eerily quiet. "The boy." Zekhan felt unease. "What do we tell her of the boy?" Neteyam had been fatally shot by Quaritch not long after Kali got snatched. He was trying to help his brother and a few others save Payakan.

"The truth." Saurfang was simple. "May it fuel her anger against these people." They were getting close now and Zekhan nearly paused mid-jog.

"Do you feel that?" He inspected the air around the ship and saw how it was beginning warp with heat. Zekhan's eyes widened.

"There she is." They watched as a figure stepped up from below deck, hands covered in the burnt flesh of others. She was criss-crossed in glowing red veins and her hair whipped about in the air above her, buoyed by the updraft from the flames licking off her skin.

"She's...ascended down the fire path." Zekhan stared in awe at the warrior woman striding across the deck, heading to the front of the ship. He raced up to the edge and called up to her. "Sully!" There was no response as she seemed intent on joining the fight and was just looking for a way down. "Kali!"

She turned her head, a little startled and he saw that her eyes were glowing red coals. "Zekhan." She considered. "Zekhan. I have to-"

"Kali, you need to know something-"

The ship intercom crackled and blared to life as Quaritch spoke into it from somewhere afield. "You've already got on dead kid, Sully. You wanna try for more? Surrender!"

Kali's eyes lit up with flames in the shape of a mask which went up and around her forehead with a point like a crown. "Which sibling?" She asked Zekhan, her voice low with danger. "Which...Fucking...Sibling?"

"The older boy." Saurfang answered, seeing the power this was giving her. Kali stepped off the side, and Zekhan almost yelled as he ran to catch her but...air spirits let her step on their backs and when she reached the water it began steaming and hissing from the intense heat melting off her. The water spirits let her stand on them as well, and stand she did.

"Let him hear me." She pleaded with the air. "Let Quaritch hear me." Then she screamed like a true Horde member and began to run across the water where she could see him circling over water. "You be a dead man, Quaritch! My brother... I'll fucking kill you!" And then she really started running, pushing off the water and leaping up through the air. She grabbed his ikran, pulling herself up and over the wing and bringing her fist down on Quaritch. The ikran screamed with Quaritch and he attempted to pilot it while shooting at her. Zekhan watched, feeling that it would all be over soon. Her hands went through his body over and over.

He could see her getting shot and...she wasn't reacting. Just screaming the war cry only an angry Horde could've taught her. "Bastard!" And then they were crashing. Just before the ikran hit the waves burnt alive, Kali's flaming fist went through Quaritch's throat and out the other side. Then they were both under.

x

Kali felt the power fleeing her body as she sank with the corpse. She had exerted so much will, borrowed so much from so many spirits... She barely felt able to keep her eyes open as she sank. It was beautiful even as the salt stung her eyes, to look up through the crystalline waters at the sun dipping below the horizon. Coupled with the flaming wreckage, this lent the water a beautiful red-orange color. Stop lookin' at the colors and swim up. You be drownin'.

Kali just smiled at Bwonsamdi's insistent voice, opened her mouth and breathed in. It should've killed her but..."I think I be fine." She turned her head to look at him as she came to a rest on the seabed. You be growin' tired. Get to the surface. He was still going on about it. Kali shook her head. "Give me a moment to cry down where no one can witness it. Let the sea carry away my sorrow." She was weeping, for Neteyam. He had been shot dead. If ya hurry ya ass up, I can let ya speak to Neteyam one last time.

This got her attention and she tried to move, to no avail. "I'm sorry, Bwonsamdi. I feel as if I've torn every muscle in my body apart from the ones directly keeping me alive."

Zappy be on his way. Sure enough, there he was grabbing her and swimming back up, carrying her bridal when he stepped out and stood on the surface. He held her up amid cheers and cries of victory. "I present Kali Sully from the fire shaman path! Let's hear it for Kali, of the Solar Scorch!"

Then he began to walk to a rock in the middle of the water where her mother and father were crouched over a bleeding blue body. Neytiri was wailing and sobbing, her body over her eldest son's. Kali was set down and she put a gentle hand on her mother's shoulder. "Mother, that isn't him anymore." She turned to look at her brother's soul. "I see you, Neteyam." She made the gesture. "There is someone here who can help you see him too. But you have to be nice. He is important to me."

"The demon?" Her mother rasped, voice broken from screaming.

"He is no demon." She said and turned to Bwonsamdi. "Show them, godfather." Bwonsamdi choked a little before revealing himself and going over to Neteyam's soul, still just a mask. He touched Kali's brother and Neteyam became visible.

Kali hygged him. "I'm sorry I snapped at you on the beach, that I was essentially the last week of your life. I love you, Neteyam."

Neteyam chuckled and looked at her in awe. "Kali, I always sort of knew you'd go out on your own one day. I just didn't know when." He glanced at Zekhan where he stood behind her. "And I wanted to make sure the people you were choosing to surround yourself with were good enough for my little sister." He leaned in closer and whispered. "And Zekhan passed the test."

He turned to their mother as Kali stepped back. Neytiri's went right through him and Bwonsamdi apologized. "I be sorry, mistress. But it be purely because she was once someone else and still has that power in her."

Jake was the one who apologized while Neytiri tried to say goodbye to her baby. "No. I'm sorry. You've saved her life I don't know how many times. She said I didn't deserve to know you... I'm sorry it's true."

"Was." Bwonsamdi corrected him.

"Dad..." Kali considered her words. "When they figure out how to get home...I'm going with them. I have to know more about who I was. About the other people... the other culture that was stolen from me when I..." Jake stopped her, pulling her in for a bone-crushing hug before switching places with Neytiri. Lo'ak joined him.

"You're ready." Neytiri said. It wasn't a question. "I knew the moment my little girl started to really grow up." She smiled, showing her teeth and soul in the gesture. "I want to see my grandkids when you have them. Remember that, and I don't care if you go. You need to, and I understand even it hurts to let go."

x

Zekhan watched the small family going through their early grieving stages and saying their goodbyes when he felt the magic rippling behind him. "Anduin...you should deal with that. Khadgar be picking a bad time. They be preparing for a funeral and a coming of age."

Anduin, beaten, bruised and tired as the rest of them sighed and went up the beach where a rippling hole was forming over the sand. Zekhan put a gentle hand on Kali. "Come on. We should gather the wounded. I show you how we can heal wounds and ease suffering." He took her away and saw she was smiling. "What be-"

She spun a heel and bent ever so slightly, crushing her lips to his. He felt the heat of a fire in her passion and his own answered back. He gripped her by the shoulders, rising up to join her as he straightened his back. He was almost as tall as her not stooped over. Her fingers laced into his mohawk and pulled him deeper. They only popped apart when they felt lightheaded. Then they shared a blush and looked away from each other.

"The wounded?" Kali reminded him.

"Right. Right. Let's go."

x

The funeral was hard, but Kali didn't cry. She smiled, taking comfort that although Neteyam's journey was over he was on a new one now. One that would last forever. One her family would eventually join him on. A beautiful one with no pain or suffering or fear.

A few of the sea-tribe her own age commented on her new braid, the one resting against her neck. Kali blushed and informed each one it was true. It was the symbol she and Zekhan had decided on to mark them a couple. She had given him a small lock of her hair where it did not live and taken some of bis. They braided these into each other and added beads made of polished sea glass that had also beem picked one for the other.

A man named Khadgar was waiting to take them back to Azeroth, talking quietly to Anduin and Saurfang a good distance away from the mourning Na'vi. This was it, the eve of her departure from Pandora and the dawn of a new adventure she couldn't even begin to imagine. Current she was feeding Zekhan bites of food that was common at funerals among her people and he was teaching her phrases in Darkspear and orc, which he had grown up hearing as someone native to Orgrimmar.

"I still don't understand how my nose isn't broken. How I don't have a single scratch on me. How I'm not riddled with bullet holes."

Zekhan got serious for a moment, the smile replaced with a thoughtful frown. "Shamans and druids...We be more spiritual than most and as a Na'vi you were already open to the idea of bein' a spiritualist. You musta tapped into the part of your soul that will always be Darkspear and healed."

She kissed him and stood. "Come on, Zekhan. I want to see if the others are ready to leave. I grow more anxious every moment and I cannot bear to say another goodbye. Let us move on."