"This is the fifth time this moon, olo'eyktan,we cannot ignore this"
He gave a solemn nod of his head, his hairless brow creasing into currents of worry.
He had himself at a bit of a predicament, staring down at the product of a treaty signed many a season ago, when his turn of being chief was fresh, when it seemed too far away to matter for anything.
The poor man coughed out a pained wheeze, the teal points of his ears pressed flat to his head and the broad of his tail tucked in the valley of his thighs. It was quite unusual for a warrior to show cowardice like this, especially one of his standard.
Txanai certainly was no coward. Far from that; he was on caliber with the very best of his profession, with courage near matching those of the warriors in the tales told to generations of Metkayina infants.
Now he lay on the floor of the tsahik'smarui, battered, dazed, traumatized; crimson pooling rapidly at his bruised side as Ronal scrambled to patch up his wounds.
They were pretty grave.
He was shot off of his tsurak, with half the length of an arrow plunging through and embedding itself into the flat of his stomach.
Not one of the Omatikaya arrows or one his own people used to spear through fish on hunts, no, this one had a distinction about it. It was smooth, slim, like most all he'd seen; with its slender body ending in a sharp tapering point, invisible from where it disappeared into the man's flesh. Only, instead of stiff, bright feathers like those used by the forest dwelling Na'vi, this had barbs. Short, jagged points sprouting out of its body, poking and scratching at any hand trying to tug it free from whatever it was buried in.
These arrows had a distinct smell, too. Putrid and pungent. Smoky, like the payoangwhen left hanging over the controlled fires to collect smoke under the sweltering heat of the day. Dank and musky, bitter on the tongue, like tar.
It smelled of burning. Of a thousand angry roaring infernos, fueled by the cruelty of their sadistic rage. It smelled offire.
Theirfire.
A deep groan of agony roused the Metkayina man from his musings, he blinked his blueberry eyes a bit as they adjusted away from the visions of his mind.
Things weren't looking good.
A bead of sweat ran down Ronal's teal forehead as she worked over him, dosing the already dazed man with bucket loads upon bucket loads of näk'ipu-a drink usually reserved for celebration or to let one's mind unravel and go numb after a long hunting venture. This was no cause for celebration. It was being used to quell Txanai's suffering; and it was doing very little of a job.
The man's groans and hisses of pain set a feeling of discomfort within his own stomach, as if hehimselfhad been impaled with the arrow instead of him.
He felt sorrow take over his heart; he'd been the one to oversee Txanai's training when he was a boy; all tousled curls of hair and explosive energy, eager and excited to get out onto the water and destroy all the akulashe could.
Hewouldgo on to kill one or two. But, sadly, never a third.
A grave look carved into his mate's features as she swiveled her head around to look at him, the seaweed green of her eyes conveying an alarming message.
"I cannot get it out," she croaked sorrowfully, a look of guilt passing like a shadow over her beautiful face, "it is stuck. The barbs dig into his flesh!"
His heart twisted anew beneath his muscled chest, for both his mate and his friend. Ronal always threw the blame onto her shoulders whenever a patient was unable to be healed, or was permanently disfigured.
She took the deaths hard, blaming herself for not toiling hard enough, for not saying enough prayers, for not getting there quicker.
Of course, this was absolute rubbish. She was the most efficient healer in the clan, exerting herself to the very fingertips of her potential to ease the pain of her clanmates. And she'd been doing it all alone, too.
Until their daughter, Tsireya, had come of age for her training and the great mother had sent a sign to the parents that the girl was to follow her mother's footsteps.
She was too hard on herself, he'd tried to tell her this. But, though she appreciated it, stubbornly continued in her ways, saying it helped make her a better healer.
- - -
When the sun sank down below the arch of the horizon's back; when the warriors, hunters, gatherers and weavers would be gathered together along a tree-speckled stretch of sand. All was quiet. There was no gathering- at least, not with the usual cheer and merriment that came with the close of another prosperous day.
People still gathered to munch on the ocean's yield of fish for the day, moseying about the beach to their families or to say a word to a friend.
Nobody dared speak above a whisper, nobody even thought to bring out the usual liquor chugged down by the buckets by the warriors. The suppressed air about the place even translated over to the iluwho's usual joyful clackering chatter couldn't be heard over the gentle waves.
Everything was still. Everything was silent. Everything was on edge.
He died that night.
At the still hour between eclipse and dawn. His heart went still and his suffering body laid limp. The poor soul, tortured in his last moments, was finally freed to ascend to Eywa.
A fifth man dead.
Gone to their ashen fury and cold territoriality. A mere meter in the wrong direction had cost a great warrior his life.
The arrow that had been the cause of his demise had to be cut out with the sharp blades of hunting knives. Usually ued to put an end to their quarries, Txanai's fellow comrades detested the task of shearing him open. Cutting him down to the bone until the thin wood could be pried free.
It punctured into his spine, wedged in the little spaces between the angular vertebrae, chipping a few fragments of bone off. His back had been broken; quite literally sliced in two.
There was nothing that could've been done that would've changed the course of his fate. He was a goner from the moment he rode his tsurakpast the jagged boulder that signaled their border.
Amongst the grief and mourning, the air about the Metkayina was also weighted with something else.
Fear.
Dread. Worry for the future. They'd tampered with the already leaf-thin patience of the olo'reypay. Someone was almost certainly next in the line of fire.
They'd killed and decimated once, and Tonowari knew all too well, they'd be more than willing- eager, even, to do it again.
He took to the sands, cool beneath the soles of his feet from the breezy night air that carried the scent of the sea. His gaze traced the arch of the water's spine, twisting up to keep much of its vastness out of view.
They were out there. Plotting in the underbelly of their village, no doubt swinging a multitude of vile curses in the path of the reef people. His people.
How was he going to protect them?
When it came to war with the RDA he led his people with the courage and surety that they were fighting against the enemy of Eywa'eveng. Now, the enemy was much closer and common to home, too common.
He let out a sigh, his gaze unwavering over the tiny, barely there speck of green.
They were on the very precipice of a bloodbath.
--️ ️️--_
Several cycles ago…
The sad gust of a sigh left her small lips as she sat, cross-legged, on the outskirts of the short grassy clearing.
Her ears drooped at the sound of bubbling laughter and the clamor of teasing jabs, their high voices penetrating through the thick skin along her ears, reminding her, ever so loudly,of what she was missing. What she could neverobtain.
When father had said to her 'small one, go play with the other children'she had thought his words to hold no malice against her, frankly, he seemed too busy to want to verbally put her off at the moment, grasping for his quiver of arrows and jar of layon'pay.
She was too kind, too willing to believe he didn't conceal the bite in his tone with the sugary sweetness she so very craved andmissed.A fool, that's what she'd been; an airheaded fool.
"Silly" she huffed to herself, crossing her arms over her chest, her little face screwed up in a sulky frown. She turned herself away from the clearing, much rather liking to face the prickles of the bush than them.
"Silly, stupid, dumb, bi-!"
She froze, assuming the role of a statue as she stared at it. Big fruity-colored eyes wide as they gawped into it. It was just staring, blinking so few and far between it may as well not be blinking at all. It gawped at her, regarding her with not the least bit of the animalistic hunger that swarmed the dilated pupils of most all those drooling beasts. But, then again, she didn'tquite know what it was.
Its sunset gaze was warm, like honey, appealing and inviting in a way. A way that made her feel a scary sort of semblance of… what was it again?
Security.
Yes, she actually felt safe around this- this… whatever it was called. Maybe more so than her own father. Something in there pinged to something in her far distant memory, something in its eyes. Something she'd seen before, but struggled to recall.
The staring went on for a little more than a minute, both studying and taking the other in.
She righted herself out of her startled gawking and rose to a crouch, curious now that the odd creature didn't seem to be looking for an easy meal. Her head cocked to the side in a curious tilt, hairless brows packing together over her wide ember shaded eyes. It didn't move.
Time to test the waters.
Slowly, with a level of caution, she raised a hand off of the dirty ground, inching it slightly forwards before placing it on the ground again, a little way from where it was planted at first. No reaction was given to her little pace forward- save for the little dart of its eyes down at her tiny palm.
This, in her little child mind, was enough proof that the animal was safe enough to approach undeterred.
She crawled closer to it, a little waver of excitement kinking the whip of her tail over her back. She could see nothing of it except for its glowing orange eyes, eyes that blinked kindly down at her when she approached.
What she found slightly strange was its smell; she couldn't smell it at all! Her little nose wrinkled at the bridge, twitching ad wiggling as it filtered the air for any strange scents that may be connected to this creature.
But, other than the earthy musk of leaves, soil and foliage, she could detect nothing. Strange, her nose was pretty keen at snuffling out any unusual flavors in the air. Maybe she was at the beginnings of a cold? Her nostrils didn't feel all stuffed up and full, though.
Before she could wonder her little head about the puzzling circumstances any further, it made a sound.
A soft little hiss of a whisper
"Follow"
She scrambled back, thumping down onto her haunches, stirring up a whirl of leaves. Itspoke. It could speak? It knew Na'vi? And it spoke toherof all people?
What was this thing?
It was too great of a temptation. Her youngling curiosity was simply too great of a force to fight, so, she obliged to it.
Round eyed with her heart jittering from nervous excitement, the little girl followed it, crawling as fast as she could after it on her hands and limbs. The bare striped skin on her knees and palms was getting caked in packed dirt and grit, little bruises and cuts hindering her quadrupedal pursuit, but not deterring her determination in the least.
Through the bushes she followed it, ducking twigs and branches that stuck out to poke her in the eyes and face.
This place it was coming through, she knew it. She knew it all too well, in fact. It was her hiding place, nobody could see into it, nor was anybody willing to dodge the barricade of pointy twigs to wriggle in. It was isolated, a fortress nobody could get into. Her fortress.
And, as far as she knew, she was the only one who had knowledge on how to get in and out of. How did this thing get in?
Before too long, scrambling now with her belly brushing the short, course grasses, she'd happened upon a lapse in the thick bush that kept her shielded from outside eyes.
If she crept forward a few paces and craned her neck out to peek, shed be able to see the communal fire pit where, by now, it would have a few scattered gatherings of her clanmates chatting quietly to each other.
She'd lost sight of the creature. The little balloon of excitement in her chest deflated a tad at that.
Something so appealing to her little kid self, the prospect of finding something new that had never before been seen was as tantalizing as those honey cakes Tuìza made, but wouldn't let her munch on.
It could've been a new animal, a new species, discovered by her and her alone. It would've been her victory. Hers alone! And maybe, just maybe, he'd be proud of her; he'd smile down at her and ruffle her hair like he used to when she was smaller.
This animal would be enough to cover both her daily offering andher debt offering, probably for the rest of the cycle!
They'd stop calling me those names for sure,she thought with sullen, put on determination. She really, badlywanted to find it, to capture it and bring it back home, to prize it around in everybody's faces that no, she wasn't such a loser. She wasn't a whiny, useless kid. She wasn't the apple that fell a short way from the tree,whatever that meant. She didn't have the slightest inkling to what an "apple" even was!
But that's beside the point. She needed to catch that thing.
And luckily for her, something in the corner of her peripheral vision provided a little indicator to the critter's whereabouts.
A thin blue whip, lashing against the leaves for just a fraction of a moment.
It looked like a tail of sorts, flicking to the side as it slithered away into the bushes. And where there's a tail, there's the owner; and that owner mayjustbe her mystery creature.
In a trice, forgetting to check for any oncoming foot traffic, the child zipped out from under the bush. She unfolded herself from her crawl and began to trot across the communal glade, accidentally skipping right into the path of two men carrying a great, leaf-wrapped load of meat. They managed to stumble back just in time to avoid what would've been a disastrous collision, shaking their fists at her as she passed.
The profanities they shouted at her retreating back scathed a little at her enthusiasm and she looked back at them, faces twisted into bitter scowls, and gave the best version of an apologetic smile she could.
Throwing a quick "M'sorry!" back over her shoulder, she hurried to the other side of the clearing. The shade of the bushes on the opposite side was a welcome relief, cooling her back from the sear of multiple pairs of eyes, no doubt hungry to find something to report.
I'm palulukan food if father hears of this…
She trailed after the evasive animal with her gaze to the ground, making a game of setting her feet into the larger tracks it left behind. They were kinda shaped like hers, with the same dips that indicated toes. Four of them. Could it be…?
All of a sudden, the prints came to a halt, too suddenly to make sense. The soft thump thumpof its footsteps was gone, too. When she lifted her face to look up ahead, she was even more confused. There was nothing there. No more footprints, nobody standing there. Just the hem of the shrubbery, thick and green. But then, they appeared again. Those eyes.
Despite having spent the last few minutes traipsing after this thing, she felt a little thrill of fear up her spine at the gleam in its eyes, at the little rustles of the leaves as it moved forward. Emerging from the bush, setting foot out of the shadow of the leaves, it showed itself.
For the smallest bit of a millisecond she stared,gawkedat the sight before her as if it had suddenly grown a second head.
Then she opened her mouth
And that, that seemingly small, insignificant decision she made without thinking. She would live to regret it eternally.
"Sa'nu!"
The sudden shrill, high pitched shout made her take a step back in surprise, her pointy ears going flat to her skull. A look of pure panic took over the woman's face and she quickly waved her hands at the child, begging and pleading her to be quiet.
"Shhh, shhh! Maitetsyip,please. Please be quiet, shhhh!"
The child didn't hear her over the rush of sound clouding her little ears, to preoccupied clinging to her mother to even notice how loud she'd been. How loud she was being.
It had been so long, too long, since she'd seen her sa'nok.It had all happened so fast. One day, she was seated in her lap, listening to stories about the great mother- who, apparently, was Eywa! The next, she was hearing the sound of wailing outside her letskxelkuaccompanied by the rough shouting of a man.
The next day, she wouldn't wake up to her mother's warm hand gently shaking her awake, or the smell of her appetizing stews on the wood stove. She woke up by herself, alone and cold.
She cried. Cried because she'd missed her, cried because she'd felt so alone in her absence, cried because the great weight was now being lifted from her small shoulders.
" Sa'nu.Oh, ma sa'nu!" she sobbed, burying her face into the crook of her shoulder "Where you go, sa'nu?I missed you"
A sudden shout came from behind the two, prompting the little child to stop crying instantly. She turned cold with fear, tensing up and shrinking back against her mother's chest in a futile attempt to camouflage herself.
They'd been close enough to the fire pit that the people there had heard her shout, and upon investigation, found them together.
The warrior gave another yell over his shoulder, jabbing a finger at the two huddled together on the ground. It all happened so fast. The pounding of impending footsteps brought 5 more men, all equally enraged, with the veins bulging from their foreheads. They ripped her from the woman's arms and the two dragged from the scraggles of the bush out into the open clearing.
"No, no!" she shouted and screamed at the men, pushing and fighting against the bruising grip they had on her arm. Her face was streaked with rivers of tears, eddying down the chub of her cheeks.
They began to clamor and rage at the woman, launching verbal attacks on her as she lay, cowering on the ground at their feet. The look of pure terror and dread on her mother's pale face said it all.
This wasbad.
Another voice cut in through the ruckus.
"Silence! What is this fe'randoing here? I thought I told you to guard the borders!"
The olo'eyktemarched across the communal clearing, fists clenched with fury and eyes blazing with fire. The woman shrank even further under her harsh gaze, curling up into the fetal position with her hands behind her head. The warriors, silent now at their chief's command, nodded to one another.
The child was dragged away, kicking and screaming, screaming for her mother. Fear soon turned to rage, red and hot. How darethey lay a hand on her, how darethey hit her and call her names. No, she wasn't going to stand that.
Tiny fists pounded furiously against his hard side, bashing and punching and screeching at him.
"Let me go! Don't hurt her, she's my mo-"
Smack!
The flat of his palm connected with her face in a sudden momentary burst of power, the force behind it sending her head lolling backwards. She would've fallen to the ground if not for the grip he had on her arm, almost crushing the skinny limb in his hand.
"Shut it!" he barked
The hot sting pulsing on her left cheek went riveting down her spine, seeping into her stomach, adding its heat to the pool of lava-hot fury boiling up inside her. The smack that was meant to subdue and silence her only fueled the fire. He countered her fire with his own flame, now it was his turn to get burned.
In a split second, just as the words had left his mouth, she retaliated.
With a piercing shriek, she lashed out, feeling the dagger-like appendages sink from the tips of her fingers and rake down the side of his face. Her claws slashed trails of red down from his right temple to the chisel of his jawline, four jagged paths blazed by rage and hurt, a path blazed to defend herself. Blood spurted from the wound, spattering her face and hand in tiny freckles of deep red.
"Argh!"
His shout of pain drew the gazes of everyone there to what was going on. He flung her to the ground, hands abandoning her to attend his wounds. Blood trickled down his jaw, dripping down to his collarbone and chest.
Triumphant satisfaction sprouted within her as she saw the start of a swelling begin to bloom on his forehead, an angry purple bump on his visage.
"The demon attacked me!" he yelled, pointing at her with one clawed hand whilst holding the wounded side of his face with another. The olo'eykte and other warriors looked on, faces blank with surprise.
A firm punishment was expected to be the consequence of her behavior, but, to her surprise, it wasn't. The olo'eykte sneered at the wounded man, turning up her chin in disapproval.
"You call yourself a warrior and yet you let a child get the best of you," she scoffed out a humorless laugh, turning away, "pitiful as always"
A wave of relief crashed over her small body and she gusted out a small sigh, rising to stand from her fall and brushing the leaves from her legs.
But, sadly, the diversion of attention from her meant it went back to the other nuisance in the glade. Her mother.
Cold eyes regarded the woman, still shriveled up into a ball on the leaf-strewn ground. She was grabbed roughly by the braid of her tswinand swung into the air, forcing her onto her feet. Her choked cry of agony sent a vicious blade of terror spearing through the little child's heart.
"Take this one to the barrel tree. She is to be punished for her crimes"
Her stomach pitted at this, sinking to the depths of her toes along with her heart. Oh no. The way the chief said the word 'punished' with such casual but specific nonchalance made the blood drain from her face. This wasn't any of the normal punishments she dished out.
Strong arms hooked under the woman's elbows as she pleaded and pleaded, hands pressed together as if she was sending a prayer to Eywa.
But all she received was the cold shoulder as she was hoisted up and pulled away, away, away. Out of the communal clearing, to somewhere everyone did their best to avoid. The barrel tree. The term being coined some few generations back, strangely, with no one having any recollection of how it came about.
"No!" she lunged after them, running her little legs as hard as she could to keep up with the men's long strides. They disappeared behind a curtain of ferns, swallowed up by the green. She didn't have an inkling as to what she was going to do when she caught up; convince them, plead with them, bribe them; anything. She'd do anything for them to stop, for them not to go through with their heartless decision.
But they probably wouldn't listen to her anyways.
A hand locked round her wrists, bringing her to a halt where she ran.
She didn't have time for this, they would do it before she got there! No matter how much she kicked, slapped and clawed at the arm holding her back from her mission, it remained, fiercely unrelenting.
Tears began to pool in her eyes as she heard the swift knocking of wood against wood, time was slipping away fast.
But, in a moment, all her writhing struggle would stop and she'd go still. Eyes gonw wide with horror and disbelief.
She hadn't expected it to happen so quickly, she thought they'd tie her to the tree for a day or two before going along with the brutal punishment.
It hadn't even been a minute.
Not a minute had passed since they took her mom there when she heard it.
The swift thwangof the arrow loosing from its bow, and the bloodcurdling, heart wrenching shriek that made the woman's pain her own.
Na'vi Dictionary
Olo'eyktan –clan leader, usually male / tsahik – high priestess, matriarch, healer / payoang fish / tsurak – skimwing / olo'reypay – clan of blood ( olo'– clan, reypay– blood) / Eywa'eveng – Pandora / sa'nu – mom, mommy / sa'nok – mother / maitetsyip – (my) little daughter / letskxelku – stone home ( letskxe– to do with stone, kelku– home) / olo'eykte – female leader / fe'ran – a mistake, flawed in nature / tswin – na'vi neural queue / näk'ipu - alcoholic drink ( näk - drink, 'ipu - something funny) /