With a single look of shared horror, Tsu'tey and Peyral turned and sprinted towards the direction of the school. Before Peyral had even taken five steps, a pain that Peyral had never experienced before blasted forth in her stomuch, and a sharp pain struck her like a whip across her temple. With a cry exploding from her lips, Peyral tumbled to the ground. Through bleary eyes, Peyral lifted her head and found Tsu'tey crouched above her, blocking her body with his like a shield from the unknown hellfire that was tearing up their beloved home around them. Peyral faintly registered Tsu'tey shouting in her ear, something about her wounds, but Peyral just fixed her eyes ahead, on the treeline in front of her. She could faintly make out the outlines of the school between the trees so, and shaking off Tsu'teys hand, she clawed her way towards it, crawling through the foliage in front of her before somehow making it to her feet and clumsily staggering her way drunkenly through the forest, half blinded by something very wet and very red running down her face. It was as if her mind and body was out of her control; all she could faintly register in her mind was : get to the school.
By the grace of Eywa, Peyral made it to the entrance of the school and stopped. There was now no sign of the demons, even Grace, the teacher Peyral had heard about from the other Na'vi, had disappeared and it was so unnerving for the air that moments ago had been alive with gunfire to suddenly be as silent as a graveyard. All Peyral could see was the huddle of shocked children, and young adult Na'vi huddled in a circle around something. Someone. Like a zombie, Peyral stumbled over, not being able to feel her feet, or any part of her body really. She barely even registered the howls of grief and pain that tore through the air around her by her wounded people, nor the empty shock on the faces of the silent ones, who were slumped on the ground as if they were already dead, their emotionless eyes just staring ahead, into a bleak abyss only they could see. But Peyral barely even registered them. All she could see was the slumped body of a navi in Neytiri's arms and she focused on the face of Neytiri. Peyral had never seen anything like it. Neytiri's beautiful face had twisted into something ungodly, with her mouth ripped back into a snarling howl that was tilted up towards the sky as if Neytiri was trying to deafen Eywa herself; screams were pouring out from her lips, and Peyral knew they were loud but at the same time, Peyral couldn't hear them. It was if she had her head underwater. But Peyral couldn't bring herself to ponder why this was, as her eyes were still focused on the slumped form in Neytiri's arms, the cause of Neytiri's pain.
It was Sylwanin.
Numbly, Peyral turned to her right where she felt a presence next to her and her eyes met Tsu'tey. The look between them allowed them to exchange a thousand words within a few seconds and Peyral couldn't stop the burning in her throat. If she and Tsu'tey hadn't become distracted and had guarded the school like Peyral intended to, maybe Sylwanin wouldn't be dead. If only. If only. If only. Peyral couldn't stop looking at Tsu'teys face and it seemed he couldn't tear his eyes off her either. Peyral felt her body begin to shake and the burning in her throat spread to the rest of her, causing an unnatural sort of pain that burned in Peyral so fiercley Peyral couldn't understand how she could still be alive. Sylwanin, her friend, was murdered by the same demons that had murdered her parents and Peyral herself was off doing what? Confessing her love to the very man that her friend was engaged to. What sort of navi was she? Why didn't Eywa strike her down, right then and there, for possessing such a rotten soul?
Without a word, Peyral turned on her heel and stumbled away.
It would be weeks before Peyral would emerge from the forest again and return to the hometree, to her people. Many had presumed her dead, and even though her body returned to her people, those rumours were whispered amongst the people to be atleast half true. The Peyral that the people knew had changed. This Peyral that emerged from the forest that day now had a face of impenetrable stone, as if her lips were made by the floating mountains of pandora itself, never permitted to bend or move into a smile; her fierce and logical personality twisted into one made of jagged rocks and sharp sticks as if she had become all of the badness of the forest after living in it in isolation for so long and her wide eyes that once saw all the beauty of the forest now skittered away from all eye contact like a scared spider, and instead stayed focused on the distance, watching memories that she never spoke of.
Most of all though, she never allowed herself close to Neytiri and Tsu'tey and would not for many, many moons to come.